#you have ao3's 'here click this disclaimer' but do you KNOW

[wantonlywindswept]

you can never escape your sins

in the midst of all the tumblr pr0n bot notifications i got an alert from FANFICTION.NET on my old email account and the emotions were thus:

holy shit is that fanfiction.net

holy shit why did someone favorite my profile it’s been 84 years

...oh THAT was my screename?

they favorited it with only one story present?

HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT IS THIS BIO OH MY GOD I CANT EVEN READ IT DIRECTLY THE REGRETS THE REGRETSSSSSSS

wait i def wrote more shit than that, what was the other name i thought it was..?

oh thank god this profile is much more sane what a difference *checks* a... year? makes??

angst, angst, angst, random fluff, angst...yeah that seems about right

tempted to re-read the fics in a ‘covering your face with your hands and peeking through your fingers’ kind of way but i don’t think i’m emotionally prepared for that kind of mortification

[lacefuneral]

ok i've seen some posts about the tumblr alternative cohost but none that were actually helpful so!

(disclaimer: i am very new to this website. users who have been there longer can and should chime in with additions and/or corrections)

Cohost Introduction Post

What is cohost?

Cohost is a fledgling website that is essentially a tumblr clone, but with its own culture and site-specific features. It is also very much a work in progress. You are encouraged to talk in the cohost forum to suggest changes for devs, report bugs, and upvote other people's suggestions. This website WILL grow and change over time. And as such, I do not know if/when the information I share here will be outdated. Edit: To answer an ask I received, anyone can join cohost without an invite. It used to be invite-only. It is not this way anymore.

Is "adult content" allowed there?

Yes. Cohost is not on the app store, meaning that it is not subject to Apple's specifications. You can post illustrations, writing, and photographs (cohost does not support any video formats at this time, just gifs). Cohost has an elaborate filtering and trigger warning system (moreso than tumblr), and you can disable adult content for your entire account or for individual tags. I actually don't engage with the adult content at all on there. Visual CSEM (both real and fictional) is specifically forbidden (although frankly I think the guidelines could be stricter wrt written content. Still, does seem to handle this better than AO3 does, going as far to say that written content about real minors is forbidden.)

How are minors protected?

The minimum age to join cohost is 16, and requires proof of parental permission to join. Users who are under 18 are automatically age-gated and cannot view adult content.

If cohost isn't on the app store, how is it used?

You can, of course, use cohost on a computer, but it is designed with mobile in mind. Opening the website on any IOS browser, clicking "share", and then "add to home screen" will install an app for you to use. The same can be done on an android. There is a guide here.

How does cohost work?

First, you create an account. Then you wait for approximately two days (read: weekdays) for the account to be activated. This is done to prevent spam bots. In the meantime, edit your profile. List some interests, your pronouns, your other social media links. Give yourself an icon. Note: icon and banner file sizes are small. You may need to shrink and compress images.

After the two days are up, make your first post! Write a basic introduction (with what you feel comfortable you feel sharing) and list some interests you like, maybe some hobbies, media, etc. And then tag this post with "#welcome to cohost". This will let existing members know that someone new has joined, and they may initiate conversation and/or follow you.

Next, go to the search and type in "The Cohost Global Feed" and click on the tag. Bookmark this tag. This is essentially one giant community space where you can find random users. (There is currently some discourse on the website as to whether this tag existing is a "bad thing" or not because "cohost isn't supposed to have a global tag". Just ignore that lol). Next, go back to search and type in things you like. TV shows, maybe. Video games. Music. Anything. See if people have posted in the tags. Follow them. Comment on their stuff. Click "like" to bookmark the post if you want to.

Most crucially, make sure that you bookmark the actual tag so you can look in that tag again later without having to manually type it each and every time. Also, you get a feed called "bookmarked tags" which allows you to scroll through all of them at once, which replaces the "for you" feature other websites have.

You can "share" a post (called "rebug" in user slang) which serves the same purpose as a reblog on tumblr. In a rebug, you can add your own tags or comment in the body of the post. Cohost users do not talk in tags as much as tumblr users - they tend to prefer to speak in the body of a rebug, or in the comment section (replies). At this time, you cannot view all reblogs. But you can view all comments in the comment section. Any post that is rebugged will preserve the tags of the OP, with any additional tags added being attributed to you. Rebugs are named after the website mascot Eggbug, a purple bee-like insect.

Posts are called "chosts" - and shitposting is called "shitchosting." Two examples of global shitposting tags are "#css crimes" - which is when a person does goofy things with the HTML/CSS editor to make colorful text, fake chat windows, and such - and "#shitchosting" which is a general shitposting tag. I've also seen people use tags like "#random".

If a post makes you laugh, check out the OP's profile. See if they post frequently, and if you have any common interests. If you realize you want to block or mute someone instead, you can.

You can send asks just like on tumblr, but your inbox must be manually opened first. So remember to do that.

How do I look at my own blog?

This is one of my gripes about the UI. You would think, intuitively, you would click here (at the top of the screen). But you would be wrong!

It is ACTUALLY under the sidebar menu, called "Profile." And I'm not the only one to to complain about this. (To get back to your dashboard, by the way, you click on the cohost logo.)

Are there sideblogs?

Yes! Each sidepage (sideblog) has its OWN set of likes AND followed pages (blogs). This allows you to easily switch between multiple sets of dashboards. A lot of users use this to have a SFW dashboard and an adult content dashboard. But it works like tumblr, too. You can have a side page/dashboard for whatever you'd like. Maybe one of your pages is for programming. Maybe another is for photography. You switch between your pages by clicking the arrow next to your icon/username at the top of the screen. ("Ohhhhh.... THAT'S what that's for.")

What's the userbase on there like?

Mostly programmers. Trans people. Furry artists. Plural systems. Furry trans plural programmers. Certainly a lot of shitposters. The website is trans-run and, as such, has zero tolerance for TERFs. Everyone seems pretty friendly from what I can tell. And there's very much a culture of "follow someone randomly based on their vibes" that doesn't happen as much on tumblr. Tumblr is more like "I really like this TV show, I'm going to follow 40 blogs about just this interest." Because the cohost community is so much smaller, there is a lot less content overall, especially fandom content. You can't follow 40 fandom pages because your fandom tag has a total of 3 posts, all made by one person approximately a year ago (well. for me anyway).

Cohost, then, actually has much more in common with real-life socialization. You seek out people with interests that may be very different from your own, and to find a common interest is very exciting! Unlike tumblr, you are encouraged to tag as much as possible. This allows your posts to be seen, to find common interests. And, of course, don't forget to look in "#Welcome To Cohost" too! You may find some new friends there.

What file formats can I post in?

Currently, I am aware of basic image formats working (like jpeg, png) animated gifs, and mp3s. You currently cannot upload videos to cohost. I believe the reason is not related to server costs, but rather as a way to curb the uploading of copyrighted content.

How does cohost make money?

There are no ads, and yet, as far as I am aware, cohost is operating comfortably. There is, however, an entirely optional "cohost plus" that is $5 USD a month. Currently, there are a few perks, but not enough to convince me.

What if I think something about cohost should change?

Cohost has a forum where users can submit ideas for features and other users can discuss/upvote those ideas.

Here is a list of posts made for newcomers to read:

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

No, Nothin' Good Starts in a Getaway Car

Part 1 of Sometimes All You Need (A Getaway Car)

Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader

Description: On the worst first date of your life, you're aching for any excuse to cut the date short. When a chance encounter with a gorgeous blonde presents you with a chance to escape, you'd be a fool not to take it.

Disclaimer: N/A

Warnings: afab!reader

Word Count: 2784

A/N: Hi! I wrote this for @cherrycola27's 1K Celebration Top Gun Taylor's Version. I had an absolute blast writing it. I listened to Getaway Car by Taylor Swift on repeat, and the story ran away from me. It's also the very first fanfiction that I've ever written. I really hope people like it! And to the lovely @cherrycola27, congratulations on 1k followers! I'm so happy for you!

I have about a billion thanks to the fantastic @roosterbruiser for proofreading this as well!

AO3: Cross-posted here! My Masterlist

Series Masterlist | Next Part

Click Here for the Top Gun Taylor's Version Master List

You meet Jake Seresin in the midst of what is arguably the worst first date you've ever been on. San Diego is at its’ best on the gorgeous summer day you greet James outside a bustling bar for your first date. You’d come across James’ profile after signing up on Tinder for the first time at the prompting of your girlfriends.  At first glance, he is the ideal match for you. He seemed intelligent, 30 years old, worked out regularly to keep fit, had a full-time job, and was a family man. There were no glaring red flags, so you swiped right. Your conversation in the app was a bit boring, but you figured it was more due to the medium of your interactions than the man himself. So you set up a date, picking a bar in a popular area of the city, and dolling yourself up in the prettiest sundress you own, a violet number that swishes to the middle of your thighs.

It was the best of times, the worst of crimes I struck a match and blew your mind But I didn't mean it and you didn’t see it

If only he didn’t open his mouth as you sat at a table and began to get to know one another. The first indicator that James was too good to be true was when he ordered you a gin and tonic without asking you what you liked. And then there was the conversation. All he could talk about was himself, his ex-girlfriend, and, shockingly, his mother. If he wasn’t chatting your ear off about the paragon of virtue and perfection that his ex was, he was talking about his mama and how he ached, longed, and pined to find somebody to do for him what she did for his dad and their family. From what you could gather, the man had a borderline uncomfortably close relationship with his mother. He'd even mentioned needing his mom to hold his hand for his yearly physical. It had been over an hour, and he hadn’t asked you one question about yourself! Needing a break, you excused yourself, alluding to refreshing your drink, and made your way to the bar. 

I wanted to leave him, I needed a reason "X" marks the spot where we fell apart He poisoned the well, I was lyin' to myself

The bar was packed as expected for a Friday night in San Diego. The crush of people pressed you up against the countertop. The bartenders rushed from end to end, filling out drink orders at lightning speed. You finally managed to order an Old-Fashioned and were waiting patiently for the bartender to come back with your drink, idly playing with your phone and desperately counting the minutes until you could say goodbye to your date for the night.

"One Old-Fashioned," came the harried bartender's call as she passed the cut crystal glass over the bar top towards you.

"Thanks," You chirp, praying your smile isn't as pained as you feel.

“Thanks, darlin'," is also the response from the man on your right as his hand closes over yours and the amber drink in the glass.

I knew it from the first Old Fashioned, we were cursed

"O-oh!" you gasp. "Sorry, it's a zoo in here. We must have ordered the same thing!" You release the glass into his grasp.

"An old-fashioned, huh?" He enquires in a deliciously Texan twang. The rest of him is just as delicious, from the emerald eyes, the dirty blonde hair, the cut jaw with a toothpick pressed between thin lips, and the broad shoulders in a polo just a shade darker than his arresting eyes. He's tall, too, at least six feet, and for once, you don't feel like a child looking up at him. Instead, you feel positively delicate in his shadow.

"Yup," You chirp, "I needed something strong to get through what has to be the worst date I've been on in my life."

“A bad date, huh?” His voice is warm and slightly husky. While you usually wouldn’t engage with a man trying to chat with you in a bar, there’s something about this one that draws your attention.

“Yes,” you nod shyly, “it’s been terrible. But I’m sure you’ve got something better to do than hear about the bad date experience of someone you’ve just met.”

“And what,” he asks, turning the toothpick in his mouth end over end, “better thing do you think I have to do?”

Some foreign confidence inhibits you as you take a sip from the glass he places in your hand, letting the liquid slip lazily down your throat as you examine the bar around you.

“Are you sure one of those girls over there isn’t a better companion for your night?” you ask, gesturing towards a group of girls wearing skimpy dresses, sky-high heels, and sashes. They’re each holding a flute of champagne while drunkenly giggling and dancing at the edge of the dance floor. They must be a bachelorette party if the tiara and glitter are leading you right. “They look like they’d be perfect for giving you the good time you’re looking for.”

“And what would you say,” he smirks, grabbing the glass back from you and taking a swig of his own, “if I say I would like nothing more than to know exactly what it is about Mr. Average over there that’s got you all hot-n-bothered? And not in a good way, at that?”

“I’d say, another Old-Fashioned, and you’re on.” From the delight on his face, as he flags down another bartender and orders your drinks, you can see that he’s just as excited to have your full attention as you are to have his. Your decision is made even easier as you lean against the counter and peer through the crowd looking for James. You’re not even a bit surprised to see his attention on his phone in the way it hadn’t been on you when you’d been sitting across the small table from him.

It’s only a few minutes before a pair of fresh Old-Fashioneds are slid your way, and bright green eyes impale you. Taking a sip to fortify yourself, you tell him the whole sordid tale, from swiping right on Tinder to James’ idealized relationship with his ex and his codependent one with his mother. Your drink is long gone by the time you finish, and you’re fiddling with a slim straw as the last words leave you in a rush. It’s a shock to your system when a hand grasps yours.

"A pretty little thing like you shouldn't have to deal with bad dates. A man should be thanking his lucky stars for getting to take a beautiful girl like you to a place like this," the stranger purrs. 

"Smooth," you chuckle, somehow still intrigued despite having been cursing men not long before. "Now I'm just counting the minutes until it's polite for me to make an excuse to walk out of here as fast as I possibly can, and then I never have to see him again." 

"Well, sweetheart," he grins conspiratorially, "I think you've made your feelings perfectly clear already." At your questioning hum, he continues, "Seeing as how you're holding a stranger's hand at the bar and all."

You squeak in response and extricate your hand from the heat of his large palm and long, calloused fingers, face hot and cheeks flushed.

"I'm so sorry!" You apologize profusely. The handsome stranger's eyes seem amused and all-knowing as he bats down every apology spilling from your maroon lips.  Finally, he takes one step further into your space, his hand curling around your hip in a tender caress that sends heat rocketing through you.

"Tell you what, sweetheart." the hot puffs of breath into your ear send a shudder down your spine. "If the date is as bad as you say it is, I'll drive the getaway car. But first, why don’t we show him what he’s had and still missed all night?"

You're transfixed, peering up into sage green pools. This proposition will likely be a better end to the night than anything you expected. Better, definitely, than going home, changing into your pajamas, eating ice cream out of the carton, and venting on the phone to whichever one of your girls can lend a sympathetic ear.

One nod is all it takes. Your handsome stranger drags you out from your sheltered spot at the bar, making his way to the small dance floor. He twirls you around on the dance floor, song after song, in front of the table you were sitting at with your date. At first, you’re worried, not wanting a confrontation between your handsome stranger and James. But as the songs transition, you realize that you’re smiling and laughing outright, all tension dissipated in the heat of his calloused hands on you. Mr. Handsome, as you’ve dubbed him in your head, is a fighter pilot for the US Navy with a dry sense of humor that has you in paroxysms of glee. As you glide across the dance floor, you share information about yourself too. It’s gratifying to hear that he’s as devoted to his job as you are to yours.

It takes a fellow bar patron pointing the two of you out before James notices. As Mr. Handsome twirls you in a spin that wouldn’t have been out of place in Dancing With the Stars, you can see James’ face grow redder and redder.  

Mr. Handsome notices too, and with one final spin, as he clutches you close enough that you can feel the solid muscle of him against your body, he smirks out, “I’ve got you, gorgeous girl. He’s not going to touch one hair on this pretty head. And,” tone growing dark, in a growl that reduces your knees to jelly, “he’ll have to get through me to do that.” 

The song, something peppy that you couldn’t name even if you’d heard it hundreds of times before, finally draws to a close. James’ temper looks to have reached a boiling point, and just as he rises from his seat to stomp over, Mr. Handsome whisks you away, grabbing your purse in one hand as you walk past the table, with one smug wink in the man's direction. 

It was the great escape, the prison break The light of freedom on my face

You can faintly hear James' angry voice screaming, ordering you to come back, but you could care less, wholly enchanted as you are with the beautiful man holding your hand. He throws open the door to his truck in the parking lot and helps you in, and in short order, you're peeling out of the parking lot with James trying and failing to run after you.

While he was runnin' after us, I was screamin', "Go, go, go!"

The mood is light, sitting in the car after you both made your escape. The windows are down, and some country song blares lowly from the speakers. Mr. Handsome’s a chiaroscuro of color in the play of the moonlight on his skin. Every few moments, you see his eyes glance your way as if curious as to why you picked him. Finally, he pulls onto a hilltop overlooking the city and turns off the car. 

Ridin' in a getaway car There were sirens in the beat of your heart

In the silence of the summer night, any tension left in you finally drains away. It’s still a shock when he finally speaks, breaking the peace, “You know, it’s only polite to tip your getaway car driver.” 

You don’t even have to look to know there is a smug smile on his mouth. You also don’t need a mirror to know you’re flushed with the same heat he’d kept on your face all night thus far.

“Tips? Tips weren’t included in our agreement. I only remember agreeing to you driving the getaway car and showing James what he’d been missing all… night … long.” Each word dripping from your burgundy lips is punctuated by the slow glide of your fingers from his palms up his arms. Two can play the seductive game, after all. You can’t help the satisfaction on your face at seeing the blonde adonis sitting beside you, gazing back at you. 

“I’m Jake, Jake Seresin,” your handsome stranger, now Jake, introduces himself. You return the favor, gratified at the sight of his plush lips mouthing your name like he is relishing the shape of you on his tongue. The conversation, unsurprisingly, is as organic as it was when you were both whirling around on the dance floor in that bar a world away. You learn things about Jake that you’re sure he hasn’t told anyone else, just as you tell him things you haven’t told anyone too. When you finally glance at your phone, it’s well past midnight, and San Diego is aglow out of the windshield. 

“It’s past midnight,” you murmur, voice scratchy after hours of conversation and laughter.

“How was that for your first date in a long time?” Jake posits, eyes hooded, and long limbs languid as they stretch before him.

“Pretty good,” you respond, captivated again by the glow of his eyes in the moonlight. “The getaway driving was the highlight of the night after all. The only thing left is to go home and maybe get a kiss goodnight. You game?” There’s a twinkle of mischief in your eyes and an equally mischievous glint in Jake’s. 

“Well, darlin’,” he groans, “I can do you one better. I can kiss you now, sitting in this car, and taste that gorgeous mouth now and then again on your doorstep. What do you say?”

Your grin is perhaps over-eager as you haul yourself into his lap and finally, desperately kiss him like some part of you had been aching to since you left the bar. He takes the lead fairly soon, cradling you against his chest like you’re everything precious in his life. The kisses finally peter off into presses of lips against any exposed skin, gentle and sweet. You can feel the thundering beat of his heart under your hand and soft puffs of breath against the top of your head,

A sinking feeling seeps into you as Jake deposits you carefully back in the passenger seat with a kiss on your forehead and helps you buckle your seatbelt up again. Things are quiet as he navigates you home, the silence punctuated only with long, heat-filled glances and the voice of the GPS taking you home. Too soon, the truck pulls up in front of your house.

“This is me,” you say, injecting false levity in your tone, sad to be leaving Jake when you’d just found him. Jake is the requisite gentleman who lopes around the front of his truck to open the door and help you out. You walk to the door hand in hand, clinging desperately to the feelings of comfort and affection Jake had created in you in one magical evening. 

“Jake,” you peer up at him, playing with his fingers, “before that goodnight kiss you promised me. What are the likelihoods you’d want to do something like this with me again?”

“Chances, pretty girl,” he’s grinning now, something softer and sweeter than the smirk he’d leveled at James hours ago, “are pretty damned good. But first, I’d need your phone number. It’s the only reliable way I know of to get in touch with you again, after all.”

You nod, digging your phone out of your purse, unlocking it, and handing it to him. Phone number saved, Jake slips the phone back into your bag. He then tips your face up, hands gently splayed across your jaw as he feathers the promised goodnight kiss across your lips, the apples of both cheeks, and your forehead. He then presses one final kiss against your lips, a kiss potent enough to make your legs weak, and then steps back, smiling from ear to ear as he watches you unlock your door with shaking hands.

“Text me, gorgeous girl!” 

Those are the last words you hear as you step into your dark house and lock the door behind you.  A ridiculous dopy, giddy grin dances across your lips at the thought of Jake Seresin wanting to see you again. They always say, "No, nothin' good starts in a getaway car," but as you fall asleep in your bed that night with a text zipping through the night air to him, you know that Jake Seresin will be different. You have this sneaking suspicion that he thinks the same of you.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN HERE OR ON AO3 BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE OR AO3, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

[chizue-witchery]

⚜️. *. ⋆ Fandom: QSMP | Quackity SMP

⚜️. *. ⋆ Pairing: Jaiden Animations & Roier

⚜️. *. ⋆ Character/s: Jaiden Animations, Roier

⚜️. *. ⋆ Summary: Roier is holding her hands like she'll disappear from his grasp and she doesn't understand why. She's right here.

⚜️. *. ⋆ Word Count: 1,010

⚜️. *. ⋆ Warnings/Tags: major character death, hurt no comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, angst

⚜️. *. ⋆ Prompts/Squares Filled: "How many fingers am I holding up?" || @whumptober Day 1 • Doesn't Realize They've Been Injured || @badthingshappenbingo • "Don't cry." || 100 Ways to say "I Love You" Challenge Prompt#39

Whumptober2023 Masterlist || BTHB Masterlist || 100WTSILY Masterlist

AO3

A/N: before clicking the read more, this is a disclaimer that they are the characters/cubitos and not the content creators themselves!! other than that, i hope you enjoyed reading my first ever whumptober entry! <3

"¿Cuántos dedos tengo en la mano?" A voice calls out to Jaiden; a voice she can barely recognize due to her ears ringing, squinting her eyes to try and recognize who is holding her hands tightly. She could feel a wet pooling sensation beside her, wondering what it could be.

"Mírame, Jaiden." Jaiden didn't even know she was off looking to the side, away from the face she could barely recognize, turning back to look at the face. She could barely make out any of the person's features but she recognized the bandanna that is currently wrapped around her hands.

Someone is holding her hands like she'll disappear from their grasp and she doesn't understand why. But she knows who owns that bandanna.

"Roier…?" She whispered, realizing how much it hurt to say something. Her throat burns and she doesn't know why.

Her vision is slowly clearing and she could see Roier's panicked expression; an expression Jaiden hasn't seen on him for a long time. She wonders why he is looking at her like that. His grip on her hands never seemed to waver, but she could feel them shaking.

"Jaiden," he said, his voice sounding calm and collected even though Roier's expression isn't. He lets go of one of her hands and lifts a finger. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Jaiden squints her eyes, her vision still not fully cleared. Still, she answers, "... four?"

Roier's brows furrowed. He repeated the question, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

She must have guessed wrong, then. She tries again. "Three?"

Roier shakes his head, then sighs. "It's one, Jaiden."

"Oh," is what all she says, not knowing how to respond to it. She must be out of it if she got it wrong twice.

Jaiden tries to get herself up, but Roier prevents her from doing so. "No te muevas, Jaiden– don't move," he tells Jaiden and she stops. "Las pociones no funcionarán contigo. Estas demasiado herido."

When Jaiden doesn't respond, Roier remembers she can't check the translation device due to it being broken during the impact. "The, ah, potions won't work on you. I don't want to risk it."

Roier would've already used a totem of undying to help her, but one has already been used on himself; still feeling the after effects of using it.

Jaiden slowly nods, wondering if it's just her or is her vision getting dark. Her head is starting to hurt too, shutting her eyes close to help ease the pain for a brief moment. "What.. happened..?"

Roier releases Jaiden's hands, wrapping an arm around her instead to keep her steady. "The Code attacked us while we were exploring." A pause. "Hice lo mejor que pude para protegerte, pero fallé…"

Jaiden hums and exhales a shaky breath. "Thank you for protecting me, Roier…"

"It wasn't enough," he retorted. "Aún te lastimaste y ahora estás—" He stops himself from continuing his words.

Jaiden didn't need the translation to know what he's talking about. She could feel it in the way the pool around her doesn't stop, even with the bandages wrapped around her waist. Her breaths are getting shorter and she opens her eyes so she can look at Roier one last time, even if it feels heavy.

"Thank you for being the best partner I could've had in taking care of Bobby," she slowly starts out and Roier's eyes widen.

"Cállate, Jaiden–" he says, "We're going to get through this. Don't—" His voice cracks at the end.

"It's okay," Jaiden whispers, lifting her hand to caress Roier's cheek, noticing the blood (her blood) smearing it. "It's okay…" she repeated softly.

Roier's eyes never leave hers as he places his free hand on top of hers, closing his eyes as a tear rolls down his cheek.

"Don't cry, Roier." She tells him with a smile while the tear droplets land on her face. "You'll… you're going to get through this…" Jaiden's smile never wavers even as more tears drop on her face. She only looks at him like she always does; safe. "You have Cellbit, Foolish, Forever– you have everyone by your side."

Roier shakes his head. "I won't have you."

"No… no, you won't." She slowly shakes her head. "But it's okay."

"It's not." told Roier, eyes brimming with more tears. "No puedo perderte también–"

Jaiden quietly shushes him as she lifts herself up a bit to press their foreheads together as she closes her eyes. "You're going to be okay."

Roier closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then he opens them once again to look at Jaiden. This will be the last time he'll see her. He can feel it's going to be the last time he'll see her.

She won't respawn and they both know it.

Which is why Jaiden tries her best to be strong for Roier even if her body hurts a thousand times more every time she moves. Because Roier has always been strong for both her and Bobby, it's time for her to be strong for him.

She stops holding Roier's cheek and wraps both of her arms around him, giving him comfort in her final moments because it's the only thing she can do.

Roier wraps his other arm around her, keeping her close because it's the only thing he can do. They're way too far and there isn't enough time to save Jaiden's life.

It's the end.

"Te quiero mucho, Jaiden…" he whispers to her as the sun sets behind them.

"I love you too, Roier," she whispers back to him as her hold on him loosens, feeling colder and colder by the second.

"Saluda a Bobby de mi parte…"

Jaiden never got to hear his last words, her eyes closed with a contented smile as she slumps over Roier.

She never got to hear Roier cry nor did she feel him shake her body as he tells her to wake up over and over again until he had to be dragged away from her body.

Jaiden's gone and Roier breaks.

[notafandomname]

Hey anyone wanna know the pointless data that I just found. Sure okay here we go:

Using AO3's tags, we can see that the hermitcraft smp has 14,042 fan works published. 1,241 of those are rated E. So that's 8% of hermitcraft works being explicit.

I compared this to the dream smp, which has 71,577 fan works, of which there are 3,037 explicit fics. So that's 4% of dream smp works being explicit.

As a more general overview I had a look at the Minecraft fandom tag and found that out of 102,507 works there are 6,019 works rated E, putting it at 5% being explicit.

OK so now why the fuck did I do this and also, does it mean anything?

One of the things I love doing on ao3 is going into different fandoms and seeing the general vibe of the works, I like seeing which ship is most popular, how many works it has, what the general ratings and warnings are, and what additional tags are most common. It's just a fun little thing and I like learning about different fandoms that I'm not a part of. I also really like seeing the additional tags, and seeing what fun little things pop up, because there's always fluff, angst and hurt comfort etc but I like seeing what else there is! There always some fun fandom specific tags to be seen.

Anyways, that's just the sort of thing I like doing, and another thing I like is seeing a specific or weird tag and clicking on it to find out what the deal is, how many works it has, what fandoms it's for etc. And anyways today I was having a look at an author that had written a lot of smut fic. And they'd used the tag mob fucking a lot (yeah, like the Minecraft mobs, for this unfamiliar with the concept). So ofc I was like "I wonder how many works that tag has" (it's 41 btw). And I noticed, scrolling through, that it was overwhelmingly hermitcraft under this tag, which I thought was odd, because I know dsmp is a lot more popular so I naturally assumed that for something Minecraft related, dsmp would have more fics. And that thought naturally progressed to fic tropes in general, if the dsmp has more works, surely it has more of everything, right? More E rated fics at least. So I did that maths, for curiosity's sake, and thats what I found! Smutfic makes up double the amount of fics in general in hermitcraft than in dsmp (those being the two biggest smp specific Minecraft fandoms on ao3).

This info,,, benifits no one, as far as I can tell, and is useful for nothing (except my own curiosity) but it is interesting just in terms of challenging my own preconceptions, and probably many peoples, on how just because something is popular doesn't mean it has the most of any one thing. And I was also surprised at how small the amount of E fics was in general, I think there's still this overwhelming generalisation of fanfiction being pornography of being an especially lewd sort of writing, and scrolling through ao3 it really does feel that way sometimes. But I think that's just because,, when we see something that has graphic tags, or an E rating, it just stands out more, you know? We remember it, it sticks in our minds, and makes it feel like there's more than there actually is (not that there isn't plenty).

I'm probably going to do more of this just for my own sake, and see how much of different fandoms have different percents of smut/E ratings,its really interesting.

Also disclaimer I'm not 100% certain that I did my maths right in getting those percentages (I did number of E fics÷number of fics overall, times 100, which I think is right but it's late so honestly who know) and I also was aware that plenty of smut gets published under not rated works, so I did a quick search for unrated works with the tags "smut" or "porn" but didn't come up with anything that significantly impacted the original data. Guys I'm meant to be writing a report it's due in in 40 minutes and I haven't finished it what the fuck am I doing with my life.

[random-mailbox]

I posted 47 times in 2022

That's 47 more posts than 2021! (amazing, since I only got a Tumblr account this fall. Ha!)

35 posts created (74%)

12 posts reblogged (26%)

I tagged 44 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#sailor moon - 37 posts

#fic list - 14 posts

#fic rec - 13 posts

#podcast - 12 posts

#usagi - 11 posts

#anime - 11 posts

#fanfic - 9 posts

#usagi x mamoru - 9 posts

#mamoru - 9 posts

#manga - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 34 characters

#this is how i find all the stories

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 13 - Enemies to Lovers

This week’s trope of Enemies to Lovers from @floraone ’s matrix (here is the post with it for reference) was chosen by the amazing @daikon1 . These stories are more in line with the anime characterizations of both Usagi and Mamoru than the manga but it does not make them any less wonderful. I guess I am giving away the ending in these more than usual but the below standard disclaimer still applies - sorry!

As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries).

Scavenger Hunt by Scarlet32

While flirting with Motoki, Minako “accidentally” tells him that Usagi might be in love with Mamoru (which Usagi denies!). To prove to Usagi that HE actually likes her, Mamoru asks her what it would take, with Usagi giving him a list of seemingly impossible tasks to complete. And I have to give it to Usagi on these - they are imaginative, but Mamoru is if nothing but resourceful.

Secret Admirer by @starlingsinclair

Mamoru makes fun of Usagi getting gifts from a secret admirer, taunting her that it's creepy and not romantic. What if the tables are turned and he is the one on the receiving end of these? And the person doing it seems to know and understand him shockingly well.

Stitched - @irritablevowel

After an accident in the kitchen lands Usagi in the emergency room to get stitches, the person treating her ends up being someone she used to argue with daily in her school days. Can they put aside their past animosity and start over? (This one is probably in my top 10 favorite fics, make sure you check it out!)

What We Could Be - @allyunabridged

Mamoru and Usagi get set up on a blind date by someone who has no idea they have known each other for years and have been less than cordial since their school days. Could this be their chance to start over?

Right Hand Red - Usabelle

Motoki convinces Mamoru to throw Reika's going away party in his apartment. Can a game of Twister and a little alcohol change things for our favorite duo?

Next week I will be covering Slow Burn Fics based on another request from @daikon1 before getting into the Holiday Spirit with some Christmas-y stories.

Here are the links to the previous Tumblr posts in these series to explore more amazing works based on different themes - make sure to check them out if you haven't had a chance! (Click on title name to go to the post)

Week 1 - Groundhog Day

Week 2 - Established Relationships

Week 3 - Sex Positivity

Week 4 - Unfinished Stories

Week 5 - Darker Stories

Week 6 - Potions 🧪

Week 7 - Reveals

Week 8 - 👻Halloween🎃

Week 9 - Wrong Perceptions

Week 10 - Non-Senshi AU

Week 11 - In-Progress Fics

Week 12 - Mutual Pining

40 notes - Posted December 5, 2022

#4

Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 3 - Sex Positivity

Continuing from last week’s theme of “Established Relationships,” this week’s theme of “Sex Positivity” was chosen by ms. @floraone to help coincide with the last week of Smutember. Check out #smutember2022 #smutember sailor moon fandom tags on Tumblr for the most recent entries for both Sailor Moon and other Fandoms (including a few SM  ones that are not under the other tag on AO3). The list below are SOME of the works that have stood out to me that best fit this trope, but this is by no means exhaustive.

As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries).

Role Play - @wildriverinthesky

This is a super fun series of vignettes where Darien and Serena indulge in all kinds of fantasies and scenarios and explore their boundaries in a safe and collaborative manner. Even though this series is marked as complete - there are occasionally new chapters added to this one, so I would definitely subscribe!

Limited Edition - @riverlethe

I think this two-shot is one of the most fun ones I have read in a while, simply because it rings so true to life. Who doesn’t wander through an adult store looking for fun things that can be used together with your significant other?!?

Brownies for Bunny - littlelunarrabbit

As an unintended consequence of a questionable decision by Yuichiro, Usagi ends up exploring her sexuality with the help of a very confused and concerned but always willing Mamoru.

Inhibitions (and the Art of Letting Them Go) - @areptiledysfunction1107

I absolutely adore this story and it is one of the few one-shots that I wish was longer or had an epilogue that would tell us what happened next. Usagi telling Mamoru “That’s so cool! You literally fix broken hearts for a living!” and “Can I keep you?” are just *chef’s kiss* (She absolutely has to keep him!)

The Unintentional Seduction of Chiba Mamoru - @floraone

I feel like this story should be part of the required reading for.. well… everyone actually. It literally comes with sources for additional information in chapter notes! This fic covers the “Teach Seduction”, as well as “he loved her all along” tropes, but does it in a very unique way that makes it stand apart from the similar attempts. It is in the top 5 bookmarked Sailor Moon Fics on AO3 for a reason.

Rabbit in the Wolf's Den - @reispinkoveralls

This one-shot is actually part of this year’s Smutember submissions. You can feel Usagi’s nerves as the story unfolds and the game Mamoru is playing with her progresses. This was definitely a very creative solution to keep Usagi motivated to finish her schoolwork!

What are your favorite "Sex Positivity" trope stories? Have I missed any key ones?

I think next week I will finally do part 1 of the unfinished fics list that I have been compiling on the side (I decided to split it into ones that have not been updated for at least 12 months and ones currently in progress that I keep refreshing A03 for every day, which I will do in November), before doing some darker tropes for the month of October / Halloween.

Links to the previous posts:

Established Relationships

Groundhog Day

48 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

#3

Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 2 - Established Relationships

Continuing from last week's theme of "Groundhog Day" we get to look at another trope from @floraone 's matrix - "Established Relationships". This week’s theme was chosen by the amazing @beej88 (please make sure to check out her Sailor Moon art!)

A bit of a disclaimer - I have gone ahead and mapped out which stories I would like to use for potential upcoming posts, so a few of the ones that would also fit this trope have moved to other categories. As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries)

The Game - @beej88

I think including this in this list MIGHT be a spoiler in and of itself, but this is a super fun story about letting go of some inhibitions while facing realities of adult life. 

To Have and to Hold - @linlamont

This was a contribution to the most recent UsaMamo week and hands down of my favorite entries. We get to see how the wedding planning is getting to Usagi, her deepest insecurities, a very supportive Mamoru and some very lemony scenes. And the best part? Amazing art at the end of every chapter!

Sunday Dinner - Algae

A nice slice of life short story about how Mamoru feels over the years about Sunday family dinners at Usagi's house.

Prison of Hair - @master-ray5

A super fluffy one-shot about how grateful King Endymion is for the life he has. The love we saw in the manga from Mamoru to both Usagi and Chibi-usa and their sleepovers is very well paralleled in this short story.

The First Year - @uglygreenjacket

This one is actually one of the first fics I have read when I was looking for something that would go between the wedding at the end of the manga and them becoming rulers of Crystal Tokyo. These series of interconnected stories get us through the ups and downs of everyday life, culminating in an amazing scene at a conbini, that makes me smile even now that I am thinking about it. 

Pretenses - @idesofnovember

This two-shot shines a light on the adjustments that need to happen when you are living together with someone you love and how things that are important to one should be recognized as such by the other partner. 

What are your favorite Established Relationship fanfics? What trope should we cover next week? Let me know! Otherwise, I am thinking of covering some of my favorite unfinished ones.

50 notes - Posted September 19, 2022

#2

Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 10 - Non-Senshi AU

Thank you @beej88 for allowing me to use her absolutely amazing art for this post 😘

Non-Senshi AU is one of my favourite tropes in @floraone 's matrix, HOWEVER, I had to balance adding stories to this post as well as keeping some in my back pocket to be used for the upcoming weeks. So if you are not seeing a story that you absolutely love, do not worry - you will most likely see it somewhere in these series. This theme was chosen by @areptiledysfunction1107.

As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries).

Pass the Syrup, Please - @wishwars

Mamoru runs into a grown-up Usagi at the hotel he is staying at while interviewing for a new position. His plan is to try and comeback to Tokyo, having spent many years away due both school and work. This leads to a long weekend-worth of reconnecting with old friends, crossing paths, hurt feelings, and realizations for both.

just an instant gut reaction - Hariboo

A fun Dance themed AU where Mamoru is desperate to find a new partner for his showcase after Ami ends up on crutches. Minako is too busy with her own performance, Rei is a singing major, so who could they be talking about that could help him?

The Heatwave - @reiokiscorner

Usagi has just finished high school and is trying to make the best of her last days of freedom with her best friends before she starts in the photography faculty at the university. Except she is filled with self-doubt, it is crazy hot, and Mamoru is (shockingly) not being very helpful with his snide comments. I really hope that we get that Epilogue someday that @reiokiscorner talked about in her chapter notes. (Side note: this story has actually inspired me to take a photography class with how amazing the technical side of it was written out! I am starting to making progress, right @areptiledysfunction1107​?)

Hikari 27 - @uglygreenjacket

Usagi meets a handsome stranger on a train back home after visiting Makoto to help her set up her new bakery in Osaka. Making a snap decision, she decides that she needs to try and see him again and with Ami’s help finds where he is giving his lecture. This kicks off a tale about train stations, brief visits, and miscommunication that may lead to heartbreak unless Mamoru figures out how to open up.

A (Blind) Date with Destiny! - @daikon1

Minako (a friend Usagi met in university) sets her up on a blind date with Mamoru, without realizing that the two knew each other years ago. Both decide that this is the perfect opportunity to try and make new first impressions on the one person they still can't stop thinking about years later, as they proceed to pretend that they do not actually know each other. It is one of my favourite stories to re-read when I need something light-hearted with a happy ending.

took a faithful leap / i carry you in my heart - tosca1390

These stories are parts 1 and 2 of a Political AU with Usagi running for office on an anti-corruption platform and Mamoru meeting her at the hospital he works at with Ami, and getting pulled into her orbit. We get to watch as our favourite duo figures out a precarious balance of being together in spite of their circumstances.

Next week I am going to cover a few of the currently in progress multi-chapters that have been updated in the last 12 months that I keep hoping to see new entries posted up for, which is technically part 2 to my Unfinished Stories post from September.

Sex Positivity

Established Relationships

Groundhog Day

Darker Stories

Potions 🧪

Reveals

👻Halloween🎃

Wrong Perceptions

62 notes - Posted November 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 7 - Reveals

This week we are doing trope that @floraone (and everyone else I have spoken to) has been looking forward to the most - Reveals! Below is a collection of multi-chapters and one-shots that stood out the most to me as fitting of this theme.

As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries)

The Reveal - @kasienda

When talking about Reveals as a trope - this series is the quintessential reading material for anyone in this fandom. It is a mix of one-shots and semi-connected stories that show the impacts of being superheroes on everyday life, friends and family. 

Revelations - Shelliebelle

A one shot that I seriously think belongs with @kasienda 's Reveal series. Mamoru figures out that Sailor Moon is Usagi based on her sheer exhaustion and corresponding injuries. He then tries to help her best he can. 

Win a Date with Tuxedo Mask! - @tinacentury

One of the cutest reveal stories I have ever read! Motoki, who hears and sees everything, decides to meddle a bit and gets involved in helping Mamoru raise money for his old orphanage, as well as getting his friends together. We get a very confident Usagi and Mamoru who is jealous of himself and trying to do his best suave Tuxedo Mask imitation.  

Impulse - @areptiledysfunction1107

Tuxedo mask shoves Sailor Moon out of the way of a Youma attack and gets hit with a mysterious fog. Next morning, Mamoru starts seeing things (or is imagining technically?) that are quite risqué and keep getting progressively worse, causing him to start acting a bit out of character (There is also super cute art throughout the story too!)

Since I Found Out - @lyraterra

Super fun multichapter that is based around the OG anime's Dark Kingdom arc - except the reveal of identities taking place in the story's first chapter. This change guides the retelling of the events of the original story in a new and exciting way - adding in psychometry, soul bonds and saving the Shitennou. 

Perfect Imperfection - @allyunabridged

Tuxedo Mask accidentally figures out who Sailor Moon is in the middle of a battle, and realizes how much of Usagi’s behavior is due to her Senshi duties . As the week progresses, he does his best to let her get to know him better without the usual bickering. Except old habits die hard, now impacting their teamwork in battle. Adorable, fluffy ending to this one.

Deception - @floraone

When Luna finds Usagi and turns her into Sailor Moon, Mamoru and her have been together for 6 years and are currently living in the same apartment. Luna insists that Usagi absolutely cannot tell her significant other (that she trusts with everything!) about this, leading to some very questionable excuses and hilarity as Tuxedo Mask takes full advantage of figuring her identity out for himself. 

Day 3. "Whatcha staring at?" - @lilliebellfanfics

The lemoniest story of the bunch. Usagi is pining after Tuxedo Mask, thinking about their last “get together”. Tuxedo Mark has a hunch of who Sailor Moon is and after following her for a few days, finds her taking a bath at the Hikawa shrine. 

D’aimer et D’être Aimé - @she-dreams-in-pink

Mamoru finds Usagi at the counter at The Crown working hard on what he presumes is homework, earning him a scoff when he tries to joke about it with her. But who is this letter really for and what is it about? 

Drunken Confessions - SailorMoonFanForever

Girls, Motoki and Mamoru get together at Mamoru’s apartment to have a little fun in a safe environment. Alcohol + Game of Truth and Dare end up lowering Usagi’s inhibition and cause her to admit things to Mamoru that she wasn’t planning on telling. 

Miraculous Musings: Vignettes of a Miracle Romance (Chapter 28: hidden identity) - @goddessalthena

Mamoru keeps writing something on napkins while having his coffee at the front counter of The Crown Arcade. What if Usagi notices? Or one time he drops it on the ground “by accident” before leaving? 

Have I captured all your favorite reveals stories? Please add more to the comments!

Next week we will cover 👻Halloween🎃 and costume related fics, since the post will go up on October 31st before trick-or-treaters start showing up at my place. 

Here are the links to the previous posts to explore more amazing works based on different tropes: Sex Positivity, Established Relationships, Groundhog Day, Unfinished Stories, Darker Stories, Potions 🧪

74 notes - Posted October 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[anooonwrites]

HOW TO CUSTOMIZE THE WORK TITLE IN AO3

If you want to add a little personal twist to your works in AO3 without having to go through making your own image header amongst other things, you can alternatively customize it simply by changing the font specifications. Above is how ‘The Many Misfortunes and Perfectly Ill Timing of Tendou Satori’ looked like before I created an image header.

If you’ve noticed there are only minimal changes from the default work title, but it still stands out. Below is what the default work title looks like:

So how do you do it? It’s simple.

[ 1 ] WHERE DO YOU BEGIN?

You will need to Create a New Workskin. This workskin will contain your customization. I will link AO3’s own tutorial on workskins, if you’re unfamiliar with it.

[ 2 ] HOW TO CHANGE FONT STYLE?

Similar to my Chapter Titles, I did not change the font style in my example above. Instead I made use of changing font size, font weight, and font color.

If you decide to change your font style, you will have to take note of the limitations.

In selecting a font style for your title, you will have to consider the likelihood that the font you’ve selected is (1) installed in your reader’s devices, or (2) if their browser would recognize the font. If your selected font is neither passes those two qualifiers, the font style will only change on your end and not on your reader's end.

An example of a common font is Consolas.

font-family: 'Consolas';

You can go with a common alternative font. But you can also select multiple fonts so in case your first choice is not installed in your reader's end, there are backups.

font-family: 'Consolas', monospace;

Now that you know how to select font style, and create a declaration, you can add this between the curly brackets of the Selector for Work Title. It should look like this:

#workskin .preface.group h2.title { font-family: 'Consolas', monospace; }

And on the job? It will look like this:

[ 3 ] HOW TO CHANGE FONT WEIGHT, FONT SIZE, AND FONT COLOR?

So here’s the fun part. You can edit the font weight, font size, and font color. You can do other customizations as well, but for now we’ll stick to the easiest and simplest declaration there is for beginners. Like me!

font-weight: bold;

font-size: 30px;

color: #C70039;

You can then add this between the curly brackets of the Selector for Work Title. It should look like this:

#workskin .preface.group h2.title {

font-weight: bold;

font-size: 30px;

color: #C70039;

}

This is what this code will look like:

[ 3 ] WHAT NOW?

Once you save that to your workskin, you can then apply that workskin to your work. Go to your work and click Edit Work. It will be under Association when you're editing your work. 

Now that you know the steps, you can combine things together. Or look up more advanced customizations for your Work Titles. Good luck!

If you want to learn more about CSS and HTML, there is an entire tag in AO3 that is dedicated to making tutorials for beginners.

My asks are open for CSS related questions! But as a disclaimer, I do not have any professional/educational background in coding. So I won't have all the answers.

If you want to read something funny with a hint of smut and plot, come read MISFORTUNES AU! It’s a Haikyuu AU with a plot that revolves around Tendou Satori and his ability to hear and see people’s thoughts. ☆

OTHER TUTORIALS INSPIRED FROM THE MISFORTUNES AU:

HOW TO CUSTOMIZE THE WORK TITLE IN AO3

HOW TO CREATE AN IMAGE WORK TITLE IN AO3

HOW TO CUSTOMIZE THE CHAPTER TITLE IN AO3

[wander-wren]

hi! so this post is from april and i hope it's not too weird of me to reblog it, i'm just fascinated by tag wrangling and read the guidelines for fun and noticed you never actually got an answer. also i love an excuse to infodump. so, uh, here i am!

[disclaimer: i'm not a tag wrangler, tho i'd very much like to be, so don't take this as word of god from ao3 itself.]

so, the short answer is that different aspects of a character technically don't get separate character/ship tags, except also they do.

ao3's system has this fun thing called metatags, which group semi-related tags together. the metatag will be the "most correct" one, while other canonical variations will be subtags that link to it. (you also have related tags, which are every tag the wranglers/filters have caught that is similar to them, but related tags mostly aren't canonical and can't be used for filtering.)

here's a fun thing you can do in ao3 to actually see this tagging system laid out! if you pick any tag to filter (in this case, anakin skywalker), you can actually click on the tag at the top of the screen and the link will take you to the page with all of the info about how it's organized which is super super cool.

~~data~~

it's very very small, but the third section down there is actually the metatag(s) for the "Anakin Skywalker" tag, which is "Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader".

if you click on that link, you'll find a very similar page, but with the metatags section replaced with subtags--the subtags here being "Anakin Skywalker" and "Darth Vader." i'm not 100% certain, but it seems that despite being linked, fics that are only tagged "Darth Vader" will not show up under the "Anakin Skywalker" tag; i'm not sure if the same is true for "Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader" (i scoured the guidelines and checked the first three pages of results, and it's unclear).

edit: i found a note in the faq page!! basically, all subtags show up in the larger metatag, but metatags don't show up under subtags and subtags don't show up under each other, if that makes sense.

but that's not even the "why" yet, i got a little sidetracked with the background info. let me check out the other four examples you gave before i try to cobble together my conclusion.

so, "Angelus (BtVS)" (and i haven't seen the show so forgive me for lacking context here) is a subtag of "Angel (BtVS)." both of them are also subtags of the top metatags "Liam" and "Angel." metatags are sometimes used as disambiguation pages this way. anyhow, there is no combined "Angel | Angelus" tag, which is interesting.

google tells me that the name progression here is liam (normal dude in 1753) -> angelus (vampire) -> angel (vampire from ~1943 on). so if i'm seeing this correctly, angel and angelus are the same person at different points in his life? this would make more sense if he started going by angel immediately after the soul-restoration thing, but that happens in 1898, so...i'm not sure what's up with this guy. will circle back.

bucky/the winter soldier, though, i do know. and here we have ANOTHER situation. "The Winter Soldier" has been made a synonym of "James "Bucky" Barnes," so all fics tagged only "The Winter Soldier" will show up under "James "Bucky" Barnes" in filtering.

"Dark Phoenix" (i also don't know much about x-men, sorry) is also a synonym of "Jean Grey" and works the same way. i...honestly don't even know how to parse the wikipedia page for that character. but i'm basically getting that dark phoenix is the evil version.

so. basically. according to tag wrangling guidelines, when creating a canonical tag for characters with multiple identities, the main canonical tag should either use all identities (with even more guidelines on formatting that which i wont get into), or the most used/widely recognized identity. either way, the other versions of the tag will be made synonyms or subtags of the main one.

also according to the guidelines on metatags and multiple identities, it is essentially up to wrangler's discretion how they choose to format.

yes, i did just write an entire essay only to come to a conclusion that simple. i'm being thorough. but also i'm sorry, op, for doing this to you.

i believe the thought process for anakin/vader is that both identities are pretty well known, as is the fact that they are the same person, so it makes sense to make both of them the metatag. at the same time, anakin/vader are pretty different characters, so it's useful for them to have separate subtags.

for bucky/winter, i would argue that the winter soldier is not really a character in his own right (and there's plenty of fanon to argue that he is, but strictly canonically...eh.) speaking as someone with limited comics knowledge who was mostly into the mcu, so idk, maybe i'm missing something. also, bucky is around as Bucky a lot more than he is the winter soldier, and even when he is the winter soldier people (steve) often call him bucky anyway, so it makes sense to keep that as the main tag.

i think part of this also has to do with fandom trends in tagging. it's interesting to me that both examples of superheroes here (and most examples of comic book superheroes on ao3) have alter egos synned to the main canonical tag, which is just the civilian name, regardless of the differences in the presentation of the alter ego. i'll hazard a guess and say that's why "Dark Phoenix" doesn't get her own tag, because most other x-men/marvel characters don't.

contrast this with a fandom like BNHA, where pretty much every adult hero character has both their civilian and hero name in their canonical tag. whoever was in charge decided that was the best way to do it, and tags created since have followed the same formula, even when it might technically be more accurate to only use one name or the other. at least, that's my thinking.

i still have no idea what's up with angel/angelus, though. i probably need more fandom context on that. or maybe the decision is a somewhat arbitrary one and we just have to roll with it.

TLDR: there are some guidelines, but character name tags mostly come down to trends in the fandom and the tag wrangler's personal interpretation.

this got longer than anticipated. if i wasn't writing as i investigated i probably could have made it nicer for you. i hope i managed to answer the question, or at least impart some Cool Tag Wisdom. also, everyone should totally go diving through tag trees more often, bc it's super interesting.

Question for or about AO3 tag wrangling - what is the line (broadly speaking) between whether two different aspects of a character get separate canonical character and/or shipping tags? It looks like Angelus (BtVS) and Darth Vader get their own tags, but the Winter Soldier and Dark Phoenix fold into their respective mains. I'm just curious if there is a guideline that's used or more of playing it by ear?

[andreafmn]

Speak - Chapter 3

Word Count: 3K

Story Description: Bella Swan was a disaster when Edward had left. Deciding she needed a little help, Charlie Swan receives with open arms his younger daughter (Y/N) Swan. She helps Bella during her depression and becomes inseparable from her long-lost friend Jacob. What she didn’t expect was falling for a hotheaded short-tempered silver wolf.

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Twilight, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Stephanie Meyer and Summit Entertainment. The only thing I own is Swan Reader insert, any upcoming characters, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ storyline.

Chapter: 3/?

A/N: oh oh, Paul seems to be sneaking into (Y/N)'s thoughts... Also changed up the story to third person POV, cause I couldn't continue in first. 😅

If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories. You can request at any time any story or one-shot you desire. Hope you enjoy, and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

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Chapter 3

For the past couple of days, a smile had been plastered on (Y/N)’s face. The nightly phone calls with Jake had started growing longer, even though they didn’t have much more to talk about. But his voice was a comforting embrace during Bella’s tortured screams. As time passed, the girl just seemed to get worse.

As Christmas day finally approached, Charlie and (Y/N) thought she’d be happier. At least just a bit better. It had always been a cheery holiday regardless of their familial situation. Renée made sure that the girls woke up to presents under the tree and spare cookies “Santa” had left behind. Even if Bella never said she liked the theatrics of it all, (Y/N) could tell she enjoyed the thought that went into it. Those were moments the younger Swan was sure would overshadow whatever black cloud that was hanging over her.

Granted, she had no way of knowing how deeply in love Bella was with this Edward character. In less than a year, he was able to cause more damage than their parent’s separation had ever been able to, and she had been devastated – for a bit.

“Hey, Bells,” (Y/N) tiptoed into her room. Much like every other day, she sat on her office chair staring into the endlessness of the woods behind our house. “I was gonna wrap up some presents for tomorrow. Mind if I do it in here for a bit of company?”

A grunt of agreement.

(Y/N) rolled her eyes as she placed everything on the bed, unloading the unnecessary amount of presents in her arms. “You know, Uncle Billy invited us over to spend Christmas with him and Jake. Dad is gonna try to put on a barbecue in this snow,” she chuckled, and she could have sworn she had heard the skin on her cheeks creak up into a smile. “I still remember when we were little, and he tried so hard to light the barbecue during a blizzard. And the wind just kept blowing the flame off. He was so pissed and packed the steaks away.

But, yeah, I’ve never understood why they like meat so much. I mean we’re in freezing weather and he still wants to do a cookout.”

“Just be thankful there’s something he can cook,” she croaked out. (Y/N) almost leaped off the bed when she heard the sound. But treating her like a wild animal was the best route – no sudden sounds or movements. “And that you eat meat.”

“Right, the vegetarian thing. I mean, I can make you anything, so you don’t feel left out.” (Y/N) softly prodded around the situation, maybe she could catch her sister in a moment where she’d finally agree to leave her bedroom. “I’m sure everyone would be more than delighted if you were there.”

“I’m not going, (Y/N),” Bella whispered. Her shoulders slumped once more and all the liveliness that (Y/N) could have sworn had returned to her body, dissipated in a breath.

“Come on, Bella,” she complained. “You need to leave the house for another place other than school and the Newton’s store. You were broken up with, you’re not dead.”

Bella’s body morphed back into the statue-like position she rested in most of her days. Her sights were once again frozen on the window, searching for something – someone – that simply was not there. (Y/N) had joked to their dad that they should throw the chair away while she was at school, but as each day passed it seemed like more of a possibility.

“Fine, Bells,” she sighed and gathered all her things. “You know, this guy must have been heaven on earth, cause no one’s worth this much pain.”

It’s difficult to pull someone from a hole they created for themselves. Bella was stuck deep in this hole, but she was making no effort to get out of it, regardless of how many people were trying to help her. (Y/N) found it almost baffling how many people cared for her sister, but she only cared for the one guy that left her to rot.

The girl finished wrapping the rest of the presents in her room before starting a quick dinner for her father and herself, knowing Bella would most likely not eat anything, like every other night. (Y/N) knew her irritation was visible. She loved her sister, but her behavior was starting to become unbearable. A couple of more months of this and she was sure she’d go insane. It had been four months and, as time passed, she seemed to be getting worse rather than better. It was exhausting.

After finishing up a pot of spaghetti and meat sauce, (Y/N) left a plate served inside the microwave and a note on the fridge for her dad. She was far too exhausted to clean up and left all the dirty dishes in the sink. Dad could clean it, she thought. Instead, she went up the stairs and plopped onto her bed, allowing the warm comforter and the pillow to pull her into a deep sleep.

But before she could truly succumb to slumber, her phone rang. Jacob’s name lit up the screen, and under the words, “come outside” were displayed. Instantly, a smile spread across the girl’s face. If there was anyone that could put her out of my sour mood, it would be him.

Running out the door, she put on her boots and wrapped a jacket around her body. She was met with the visual of Jacob in his truck wearing a devilish grin on his face. He reached over and opened the passenger door for (Y/N) and beaconed her inside. Trying to avoid spending more time in the cold she jumped into the truck, sighing contentedly as warmth engulfed her.

“Hey,” he smiled. Jacob leaned over the center console, placing one hand on her cheek and pulling her toward him before placing a kiss on her lips. “Couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see you.” 

“I noticed,” she chuckled shyly. There was no reason for her to still be nervous around him, but she simply couldn’t help the butterflies in her stomach. What she didn’t know at the time was that the butterflies were a warning. “I’m glad you couldn’t wait.”

“Were you able to convince Bella to come?” 

“I tried,” she sighed. “There’s just no getting through to her right now.”

“Man, that Cullen bastard really did a number on her.” She could see the anger coming from Jacob. It was like a burning aura that surrounded him. His teeth were gritted, and his hands had closed into a tight fist. “Where does he get off abandoning her like that? If I were him, I would have never let her go. She doesn’t deserve that.”

That had stung. (Y/N) knew he was probably not over his silly crush on Bella, but to mention being with her while being with (Y/N), hurt. But she knew she couldn’t bring that up without causing a fight. “Can we please not talk about that,” the girl said instead. “I feel like my life has become Bella Swan’s Days of our Lives.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he laughed awkwardly. “You know, something weird happened the other day.” 

“What happened?” 

“You remember that guy that was staring at you at the bonfire a couple of days ago?” 

“Paul something?”

“Lahote, yeah,” he corrected. “He came over and told me I should stay away from you. Did something happen there?” 

He was... jealous? The question came out of nowhere. (Y/N) thought she had been clear that she had never met him before seeing him that night, and that she wanted nothing to do with him. Although ever since that night she could not get his addictive stare out of her head. When she closed her eyes at night, even if she started by thinking of Jake, her brain couldn’t help but dissolve into his piercing brown gaze. Her head would not shake the image of the boy from it.

“Jake, I already told you that you have nothing to worry about there,” she smiled at him in an attempt to subdue his anger. “I don’t know who this Paul guy thinks he is, but I am not interested in him in the slightest.” 

“It’s just, the gall this guy has to think he has some kind of claim over you. As if he doesn’t know who you are to me.” 

“What am I to you exactly?” she teased. They had yet to have any conversation about where this relationship was headed. It had been such a short amount of time, but they had known each other for a lifetime. "I would like to know." 

“Well, I’m hoping you’d like to be my girlfriend,” he grinned, any sign of anger disappearing. “What do you say?” 

 “I don’t know,” (Y/N) giggled coyly. “Maybe I should keep my options open just in case Paul decides to ask me out. Wouldn’t want to close out the market.” 

“You’re funny.” 

He leaned in once more for a kiss, but this one was different. Jake scooched closer to (Y/N), doing his best to deepen it. She ran her fingers through his long hair as his hands rested on the sides of her face. This was desperate and passionate, just the thing to push Paul Lahote out of her mind.

As the windows started fogging and their hands started traveling south, a knock on the window startled the teenagers apart.

“I really hope that’s not you, Jacob Black, with my daughter,”  Charlie spoke through the fogged-up window, flashlight in hand.

Jake flashed her an apologetic smile before rolling down the window on his side. "Hey, sheriff. How’s your night been?” 

“Well, it was a very uneventful one at first,” he grumbled. “Until I came home, and I saw your truck with misty windows and my daughter in the passenger seat. Hi, (Y/N).”

“He~ey, dad.” She gave him a small wave and covered her reddened face with her hands. “We were just talking.”

“Last time I checked talking doesn’t fog up windows, honey,” her father countered. “Let’s go, (Y/N). Jacob, get home.”

She jumped out of the truck after squeezing Jake’s hand as reassurance and joined her father’s side. Promptly, he pushed her behind him, acting as a barrier between Jacob and the girl.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, Jacob.”

“Alright, Mr. Swan,” he responded. She could tell he was swallowing the laughter that had bubbled in his throat and was threatening to spill. “Bye, (Y/N).”

“See you, Jake.”

“Get in the house, (Y/N).”

Her father’s reaction was perplexing. He’d always liked Jake. He even joked when they were little that they would make a cute couple. Now, he was acting as if he’d caught her with a dangerous stranger. She wondered if he’d reacted this way when Bella first brought Edward around.

“What was that spectacle outside, (Y/N)?” Charlie finally broke the silence, fuming. “What exactly did you think you were doing?”

“Um, I was kissing my boyfriend,” she responded matter-of-factly. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Boyfriend? Since when is Jacob Black your boyfriend?”

“As of five minutes ago, roughly?” She was trying to liven the mood adding a tone of comedy, but she could tell her father was having none of it. “I don’t get why you’re so upset, dad. You’ve always loved Jake.”

“I’ve already got one heartbroken daughter,” he sighed. Charlie rubbed his temples, hiding the fear in his face. “I don’t know what I would do if both of you were. Jake’s a good kid but I could never forgive him if he hurt you, honey.”

“Let’s not get ahead of this, dad,” she chuckled dryly. (Y/N) had faith in her relationship, but she couldn’t help the doubt that crept into her head when her dad mentioned Jake breaking her heart. “We literally just became official. You’re ending us before we’ve even started. One thing I can tell you is that I won’t be like Bella.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t know that. I just don’t want to see you in the same pain your sister is going through.”

“Dad, I understand you’re worried,” she smiled at her father. To calm him, (Y/N) grabbed his calloused hands and gave them a squeeze. “But I am not Bella, and Jacob is not Edward. Have a little faith in me, yeah?”

“I can’t help it, (Y/N),” Charlie said. “It kills me to see Bella like this. I don’t want you to go through that.”

“I know, and I promise you that you will never have to go through this again with me,” she said. “Now, why don’t you go eat and go to bed? We have a long day tomorrow.”

“Alright, darling,” he responded defeated. “Good night.”

“Good night, dad.”

(Y/N) disappeared up the stairs, passing by her sister’s room. She mumbled a good night to her stoic sister before finally getting into her bed to hopefully sleep this time. She wanted to rest. Yet, when she closed her eyes the same ones that had been haunting her dreams stared back.

Something about him called to her. She only knew his name and still, he took possession of her thoughts. Deep inside her, something begged her to get closer to him. There was no reason for him to be in her head, much less in her dreams.

She was standing in a clearing, looking over a still river. Her body was clothed in a white flowing dress and her feet were bare. (Y/N) turned, taking in the scenery and breathing the fresh air. The sun felt warm against her skin, beckoning a smile to her face.

“You look beautiful, darling,” a voice spoke. “Absolutely radiant.”

“Thank you, Paul. And you look as handsome as ever,” she giggled. “Come here.”

He walked slowly to her, a playful grin propped on his face. His arms circled her waist and wrapped her in a tight hug, lifting her from the ground and spinning her around. As he slid her back to the ground, he placed a hand on her cheek, his thumb running through her cheek. (Y/N) closed her eyes and enjoyed the touch, his warmth feeling better than the one the sun provided.  

She felt different with him. Unlike with Jake, Paul didn’t make her feel butterflies. He made her feel calm, at peace. There was a homely feeling to being in his arms. Like she had found the right place to be in. She fit perfectly between them like she was made to be there.

(Y/N) allowed him to pull her toward the water, sinking into the comfortable river. She gave him a smile and shrieked happily as the coldness seeped through her bones. Her white dress quickly soaked and his denim shorts darkened.

“This water is freezing, Paul,” she whispered to him. He kept her close, his arms wrapped around her. “Don’t you dare let go.”

“I would never, beautiful,” he grinned. (Y/N) could feel his breath tickling her face, cooling the droplets of water that had splashed on it “I’ve got you now, and I’m never planning on letting you go.”

“Is that a threat?” she joked, copying the smile on his face.

“It’s a promise, darling,” Paul said. “It’s a promise.”

He closed the space between them and pressed their lips together. (Y/N) felt sparks running through her body, the feeling of belonging washing over her. This is where she was meant to be. He was who she was meant to be with.

“I love you, (Y/N).”

“I love you more, Paul.”

(Y/N) woke up with a startle, her breathing uneven and heavy. Her whole body was overheated. Her blanket felt too warm. She didn’t understand what that dream meant. More importantly, why it felt so real. She knew she loved Jake, and she didn’t even know Paul. What pull did he have on her that she kept dreaming of him? 

She got up from her bed, going downstairs to get a cup of water. She was startled when she found her sister staring at the sink, the faucet running, and an overfilled glass under it. (Y/N) ran to the sink, turning off the water and putting a rag on her sister’s hand to soak up the water that had run down her arm.

“What’re you doing, Bells?” (Y/N) muttered.

“S-sorry,” Bella stammered finally realizing what she had done. “I didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay,” she sighed. “Why don’t you sit and drink that water? Have you had anything to eat? I can make you a quick sandwich.”

“Uh, sure,” the girl breathed out. “I, uh, overheard you and Charlie.”

“Oh?”

“You two are together?” Bella questioned. (Y/N) was surprised that her sister seemed interested in her life. Rarely was the time she inquired in (Y/N)’s life. “I didn’t know you liked him.”

“You’ve never asked,” she chuckled dryly. “But we’ve just been talking these past few days. Most we’ve done is kiss a few times. Tonight, he asked me to be his girlfriend.”

“Well, that’s nice.” (Y/N) placed a cheese sandwich before her, and Bella started picking at it and placing small bites into her mouth. “I always thought… never mind.”

“What, Bells? What did you always think?” She knew what her sister was thinking. Bella had always known Jake liked him. If she didn’t, she at least had to have an inkling. “That he liked you?”

“I thought so…”

“Well, maybe he did,” she sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there. He’s with me now, and that’s that.”

(Y/N) got up from the dinner table, leaving Bella by herself. She had no idea where that conversation was going, and she didn’t want to see where it would go. Her whole life she’d been second to Bella. To their parents, their friends – though, they wouldn’t notice – to Jake. This was the first time she felt she was being put first, and Bella wasn’t going to take it from her. Not this time. As much as she loved her sister, it was time to put herself first.  

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[hwaightme]

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[f] fluff || [s] smut || [a] angst || [sugg] suggestive || [tw] trigger warnings ||

[misc] miscellaneous || [hc] headcanons

ot8 series and headcanons

your fan, _____ [f] [sugg] - series with separate ml bf!ateez when you are working from home [f] [s] ateez as signs of love (relationship hcs) [f]

kim hongjoong

the chemistry of christmas [f] [sugg] (ao3) motivate me [s] (ao3) rewind and remix [a] a little bit of [f] avaritia [s] feverish [f] [misc] in the rain [f] hand hug [f] in your eyes [s] [f]

park seonghwa

after hours on christmas eve [f] (ao3) feels like home (part 1) (part 2) [f] [sugg] [a]  (ao3) family for hire (series - separate ml) [f] [sugg] [misc] long exposure [s] [a] [misc] ft. wooyoung in memoriam [a] [s] bang bang [s] [misc] -> mafia!au love was spring [f] [slight a] making wishes [s] [f] ft. wooyoung this world [f] [s] [misc] -> biker!au take me back [s] [f] [slight a] -> biker!au cat named mars [f] [hc] -> catboy!hwa bonnie on the side [s] [a] essence [f] timezone [f] [slight a] page me [f] [festive fic!] impressionism [f] [misc] with you [f] [misc] [a] both [s] [f] feel alive [f] [a] [misc] panacea [f] [misc] dawn [s] [misc] my star [f] i will wait [f] lone soul [f] [misc] 03:10 AM [f] [timestamp]

jeong yunho

come fly with me [f] [slight a] [misc] all of me [f] the meaning of 'jeong' [f] [a] [misc] like the cherry blossom falls [f] guy.exe [f] 23:13 PM [f]

kang yeosang:

curiosity [tw] [misc] sangshine [f] [misc]

song mingi:

use me [s] [a] (ao3) use me part 2 [s] [a] [f] one new message [a] burning [f] [misc]

choi san:

wilting to bloom [a] safe and san [s] [f] golden hour [s] [f]

jung wooyoung:

grilled cheese philosophy [a] [tw] [misc] long exposure [s] [a] [misc] ft. seonghwa making wishes [s] [f] ft. seonghwa

choi jongho:

cliche [f]

[alicemitch09writes]

skinny love

pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou x reader

summary: 6 months later. Was he too late?

author’s notes: This is a direct sequel to first love and part of a trilogy also aptly named ‘first love’ ugh, i am so unoriginal. Please go read that first before this, otherwise you’ll be confused.

also available on ao3.

disclaimer: i own NOTHING but the plot.

His feet feel like lead as he trudged to the vending machine, adamant on getting coffee. It was only Monday. The smallest sounds of coin drops and beeps were making his head hurt.

Taking his first sip of his coffee, he walked around the quiet halls.

He hated hospitals.

Actually, they weren't that bad, having everything it needed to cater to the patient's needs. But it was a façade to their impending doom. And he hated it. Hated the way doctors and nurses would say with practiced ease that everything will be alright – when it won't.

They mean well, they really do, but they were a painful reminder of how fragile life was – how easy it can be taken away.

Reaching Room #423, he turned the knob, finding (Name) in the same state she's been the past six months. The door shuts quietly behind him, back resting against it.

"Tetsu, have you been eating?"

He could almost hear her voice, filled with worry of how thin he is. She always did that, nagging him like a mom to eat if he wanted to win. Funny she thought that, thinking more of his (and the team's) welfare's than her own. (Name) was always that kind.

Instead, the image of that beautiful girl was replaced with one lying on the hospital bed – limp and lifeless.

(Name) didn't belong here, not in this hospital nor in that bed she was lying in. No.

She deserved to be home, in her room surrounded by her instruments, fussing herself with her studies, that new song she wanted to learn, or managing a pack of rowdy boys.

He didn’t know how long he just stood there before he heard a knock at the door. Lazily turning his body, he opened the door; his actions seemed robotic, staring at two familiar faces.

"Hey man," Bokuto greeted, balloons in different colors and shapes (there was one in the shape of an owl) in hand, worry in his eyes. "Wow, you look like shit."

"Thanks." He said, taking a sip of his coffee.

"That wasn't very nice, Bokuto-san." Akaashi scolded, appearing behind the salt-and-pepper-haired teen with flowers in his hands.

Too tired to argue, he stepped aside, letting them in. Closing the door behind him, he watched the two eyeing the unconscious girl, hearing Bokuto sighing while Akaashi dutifully went straight for the vase, intending to replace the flowers.

He plopped down on his seat, canned coffee still in hand.

"But seriously man," Bokuto called, tying the balloons next to the side table. "you look terrible."

Kuroo closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose.

"When was the last time you went out?"

"Bokuto-san." Akaashi called in warning, appearing from the toilet with a vase filled with clean water.

"I'm serious!" Kuroo draped an arm over his eyes as if to hide the bags underneath. "Dude, you barely left since. Day in, day out, you're here but never at home. Nowhere else but here. You even ditched your first year of college!"

"I won't want to leave her," Kuroo said, still not moving from his spot.

Bokuto frowned at his friend, arms crossed. "I'm not saying that you should, I'm saying (Name)-chan wouldn't like to see you this way."

(Name).

Sighing, Kuroo slumped forward, arms propped on his knees, staring at the sterile ground.

"We're just worried about you, Kuroo."

That must be the umpteenth time someone's told him that – his mom, his dad, his older sister, Kenma, Coach Nekomata, the team. But still, his resolve won't change.

Taking a long sip, he met both stares from Bokuto and Akaashi, who had just finished with the flowers.

"I'm not leaving her." he said in finality, turning to the sleeping girl. There were a lot of things he wanted to tell her, a lot. And he wanted to be the first person she sees when she wakes up, the first person to see her wake.

Sighing exasperatedly, hands on his hips, Bokuto resigned. His friend was stubborn, but he had an iron resolve. "I know you won't. Figured as much."

"Then why do you still bother?"

Smirking at the raven-haired teen, he says with a shrug. "Because bro, you matter to me."

Kuroo put a hand to his heart, touched. "Bro."

"Bokuto-san just wanted to act cool every once in a while," Akaashi coolly said, opening the drapes. That earned a loud, familiar call from his former captain. Kuroo smiled, some things never change.

"But seriously dude, you could use a bath because you smell like shit."

Akaashi didn't need to scold him then as Bokuto received a (friendly) punch to the gut from Kuroo.

Six months.

That's how long he was suffering, how long he had been tortured by the mere thought of never seeing her smile again, of never hearing her laugh again, of never having her around again – of never seeing her again.

The word cancer stuck to his head was like a punch to the gut, pummeling him inside out with every step he took. Never mind the burning pain of his muscles from a day's worth of match, never mind finally giving their coach the chance to witness the 'Battle at the Dumps' match even though they lost, never mind that his high school life had officially come to an end – they didn't matter at this point. He just wanted to see her.

And the first time he saw her – dressed in a hospital gown, with tubes sticking to her body connected to machines that kept her alive, he was crushed. As if he were a porcelain doll smashed into a million pieces, each fragment breaking into smaller pieces.

He nearly broke down at the sight of her. She was beautiful as ever, yet to see her in that situation broke his heart.

(Name) had been operated; the chances of her survival were slim. But the only thing Kuroo could think was how small (Name) looked in that big, white bed.

Picking her hands, he noted how small they were – how he could practically see and feel her bones. Threading his finger through hers, he brought them to his cheek, relishing in her warmth. These were the same fingers that cared for him each time he'd earn a bruise or a scratch, the same hands that brushed his hair when he was sleepy – gentle touches that made him think that she was an angel. Slim fingers that did magic with every instrument she held.

He always knew she was small – fragile, even – but it only clicked to him now as to why that was the case. Ironic that he was the perceptive guy, inside and outside the court, yet he failed to notice his best friend's wellbeing. How did he miss to notice how little she would eat, how easily tired she was, or how low her stamina was? He was supposed to be the smart guy, for crying out loud!

He wanted to hit himself, to numb himself of the pain.

The moment he found out, he wouldn't stop crying, hating himself every minute of every day.

(Name) wouldn't wake up.

(Name) wouldn't wake up.

(Name). Wouldn't. Wake. Up.

"Kuroo," a voice called, quiet and low, one he knew all too well. Weakly raising his head, he looked over his shoulder, meeting a familiar blonde teen.

Kenma looked at his best friend worriedly, a frown in his face. "You should go home." The raven-haired lad shook his head, Kenma sighed. "(Name) wouldn't like that."

"I'm not leaving her." he says, voice raspy.

Kenma stared, eyes narrowing. "Have you been eating at least?"

"I've been snacking on what Auntie gives me," he rubs his eyes tiredly, stretching his arms over his head. "I'll be fine."

His dark hair was greasy, sticking out to different directions – messier than usual; there were bags under his eyes. The clothes he's been wearing were days old now, but it's not like he leaves the hospital. How long has he had proper sleep or shower?

"You're not." Kenma pointed out, walking towards the bed, opposite to where his friend was. He arranges the plushies from various game characters beside her bed, dusting a few. When he was done, he stood next to the unconscious girl, eyes dancing with sorrow.

Kuroo watched his friend carefully, a question burning his head. "How long have you known?"

Kenma blinked. Deciding to sit down, he met Kuroo's gaze. "A while now." He answers as if anticipating the question. "(Name) was the most secretive amongst us three; I thought you'd have known first." Shrugging, he adjusted her blanket. "But you didn't." Kuroo wanted to laugh at that because it was half-true. They both knew he was far more observant than he let on.

Sighing, the blonde props his arm on a nearby desk, resting his head on his palm. "Knowing her secret was like carrying a heavy burden because it's her secret and your knowledge of her sickness."

Frowning, he asked. "She didn't know that you knew?"

The blonde shook his head without looking at him. "Like I said, it was a burden on my part as well. Plus, that'd be disrespecting (Name). And I can't do that to her."

Something likened to rage burned within him, he was standing before his best friend before he knew it. "And you didn't bother to tell me?"

"It's not my secret to tell." Kenma says easily, carefully setting her clamped hand aside.

"But we're best friends!" Kuroo's voice rose, earning a scoff from the blonde as he turned to meet his gaze, eyes almost challenging.

"Don't you think that'd be disrespecting (Name)'s decision?" Kuroo was practically shaking now, hands balled into a fist. "Besides, it's not like you cared to begin with-"

Kuroo had grabbed him by the collar, raising him to his level. "I dare you to say that again." He seethed hotly, eyes burning.

Kenma didn't falter, eyes glowering. "What's the matter, Kuroo? Upset that for once, you failed to gain information before me to break someone, to use it to your advantage? Or are you just mad that (Name) couldn't trust you enough?"

"Shut up!" his voice rose, grip tightening.

Steely gold hues met his, challenging and mocking. "Then are you guilty because it's practically your fault she's in this situation?"

That was the final straw.

Taking his hand back, Kuroo was just about to smack Kenma in the face when blaring sound rang through the room. The two automatically turned to her, panicked, Kuroo dropped Kenma, ran for the intercom while Kenma stared at (Name)'s body, not knowing what to do.

A little while later, a nurse came rushing in.

Kuro and Kenma stepped aside, watching the nurse attend to their best friend each holding their breath. Kuroo was wondering if he should've called for her doctor, but after a while, the nurse sedated her, (Name)'s body relaxed.

The gentle beep of the heart monitor demonstrated her calmness.

"She'll be alright, just a little stressed is all." The nurse says kindly, much to their relief.

They sighed in unison, rooted on the spot even as the nurse left the room.

(Name)'s breathing slowly through the calming silence that came, followed by the purring of the machines and quite chattering outside.

The two best friends stood there, watching the unconscious girl. Kuroo and Kenma slumped against the wall, the raven-haired teen slipping to the ground. The tension between the two was still there, something that was rare even for them. In the many years they knew each other, not once have they got into a fight this extreme. And even if a fight did ensue, there was only one person who could bring it to a stop, one person they'd bow to other than Yaku.

"She'd kill us by now," Kenma sighs, breaking the silence.

Kuroo snorted at that, hiding the smile on his face.

Eventually, he broke into fits of laughter. Kenma joined in.

"She'd give us a litany," Kuroo added, voice thick. "then she'd take us by the ear."

Kenma shuddered, rubbing at his ear. Kuroo did the same.

"You started it though," Kenma told him, bluntly.

Kuroo narrowed his eyes at him. "But you fanned the flames."

They burst into chuckles, tension dying down.

A little while later, the room was filled with members of the Nekoma team – bringing flowers, fruits, and toys. Each member, especially Yamamoto, Inuoka, and Lev, fawned over their unconscious manager while Fukunaga fussed over the snacks. Yaku had to keep everyone in line.

The best friends exchanged a look, knowing that if (Name) were awake, she couldn't be any happier.

Someone was waking him, gently shaking his shoulders. Raising his head from his folded arms, he was met with warm (eye color) eyes. "Tetsuroo-kun." The woman greeted kindly.

"Auntie," He stood up in greeting, pulling his wrinkled clothes down. "Good evening."

Her smile, it reminded him of hers, how he missed her smile. "Good evening." Walking across the room, she dropped her bag and sat on the chair next to her daughter, patting a hand over her cheek. "Any news?" she asked, looking up at him.

He shook his head, hands tightening. "Just the same."

The smile remained, eyes never losing its light. "Then she's still alright."

Just staring at the woman made him wonder how she could still be so optimistic about the situation. It must be hard on her, her only daughter was under coma after her operation, yet she never loses hope. She was just like (Name). And duh, she was her mom!

"Have you eaten?"

He nodded. "Yeah." He lied, tucking his hands on his pockets.

She stared, her smile waning a bit, worry in her eyes, then nods.

"Where is Uncle?" he asked, staring at freshly cut flowers next to her bed – carnations, care of the Fukorodani team.

"Oh, just parking the car. He'll be here in a while."

Kuroo nods, not knowing what else to say. So he sits by the couch, watching Auntie talked to her daughter, telling her how her classmates missed her (evidenced by the balloons and cards surrounding her bed), how their neighbors have as well, how quiet the house has been lately without her playing, the little things. But to her, they were all that mattered.

He hung his head, not wanting to watch any longer. He could hear the sadness in her voice, the longing, and yet, she still hopes. How could she?

"I'll be right back, Auntie." He announces, making his way out before she could reply, missing the worried look on her face.

Six months.

Six excruciating months.

He's endured and suffered that long.

But still, she wouldn't wake up.

Splashing water to his face, he then looked up, finding a miserable guy staring back at him.

Then are you guilty because it's practically your fault she's in this situation?

No matter what they say, it was his fault she was in this situation. It was his fault she's lying in that hospital bed, unconscious. It was his fault.

He wanted to punch his reflection so bad, but he was tired (physically and emotionally).

He didn't like hospitals, hated how clinically clean it was and how dreadful it was. Life came and go here.

Reaching for the door to her room, he paused.

What good would it be for him to be here?

He didn't deserve to be here keeping guard and watching her.

What was he even doing here?

"Aren't you going to go in?" a voice called behind him.

Turning, he was met with a kind gaze from a bespectacled (hair color) man. Their kind disposition ran in the family, he didn't deserve it.

At a loss for words, Kuroo mumbled unintelligent words, the man laughed heartily.

"Looks like you need a bite," although shorter than the teen, he wrapped his arm around his shoulders, steering them away. "come, you need to eat."

Kuroo gulped, staring down at the meal before him, then at the smiling man. There were a few people at the cafeteria – a few nurses and doctors on break, a kid with his mother, some teens, and them.

A comfortable silence forms between them despite having fidgeting in his presence.

The smell of strong spice was making his mouth water, aptly reminding him of the lie he told Auntie. Truth was, he snacked on some fruits given by his family earlier that day, that and coffee. A little while later, his stomach growled. The old man chuckled heartily. "Go on," he encourages.

Timidly, he nodded, saying his grace before digging in.

His eyes widened at the burst of flavors in his mouth, almost forgetting what an amazing cook the man was. He chewed carefully, distracting himself with the texture and taste.

He hadn't noticed the old man leaving until he came back with a can of orange juice for both of them. Kuroo muttered a 'thanks', chugging down the beverage.

"It's so good to see you eat," he tells him, eyes crinkling. "and no, you can't lie to me. I know you, Tetsuroo-kun." He laughed.

It was like he was eight again. It was always like that with this man, this amazing man, who held instruments like magic, the same man who was the father of the girl lying in this very hospital bed, comatose, because of him.

He chewed slowly, eyes dropping. Eventually, he swallowed but didn't reach for more even though the bento box was still full.

"Oh, are you done eating?" asked the confused man.

He almost wanted to laugh.

These past months weren't easy on all of them, especially for them. They could have blamed him for why their daughter was here, but they didn't. Instead, they pulled themselves together for her and for him.

"Thank you, uncle." He says instead, meaning it. Kuroo grinned at the confused man before digging in again.

He shook his head at the teen before him, chuckling heartily. He studies the young boy before him, remembering the look on his face when he saw her comatose state – it was the look of absolute heartbreak.

When he was done eating, they packed slowly, making slow talk (although it was more of him doing the talking). They were standing outside her room, but before they entered, he called him.

"She wouldn't like it you know," he tells him, sincerely. "seeing you like this, filled with guilt and hate. She would've wanted you to be happy, even if she's not the one causing it."

There was a sharp tug in his heart at the last line. "But she makes me happy." It was barely a whisper, tears starting anew. "But I didn't let her know that."

His eyes were stinging with tears, body trembling.

The older man patted his shoulder, squeezing in assurance.

While waiting for her to wake up, he often talked to her about their childhood, some dumb memories, and some good ones. He even told her of the events that transpired during nationals, not knowing that she was watching via live television.

"You should've been there," he said quietly, letting his fingers play with her growing (hair color) hair. "the team wouldn't be anything without our manager."

Some days, he'd read to her, having scavenged through her room from her yet to-read pile. He had to endure going through books that were not of his genre (especially romance), but in the end, found himself enjoying them.

With each passing day, the hope of her waking up was waning. He feared she might never wake up. The waiting was killing him, unnerving and destroying him. But he didn't give up hope, could never. He could wait years if he has to, just to see her (eyes color) eyes again, hear her laugh again, and be with her.

"Oh my, it's that boy again! He's become a familiar face around here."

"How long has he been visiting her?"

"About six months now, since that girl was brought in. He practically lives here."

"Poor thing, looks like he hasn't eaten or slept for days!"

"And he barely leaves her room. And when he does, it's only for a few hours or a day, and then he's back."

"Seriously?"

"The poor boy, the pain he's been through."

"And she might never wake up."

"I don't care what they say," he says against their intertwined fingers. "you are perfect to me. And I'm not leaving you."

It was barely midnight, but he couldn't help it. The conversation he heard earlier was getting to him. They didn't know anything about him or her. It was none of their business.

But to say that she was never going to wake up?

No.

He didn't like to think about it.

She was going to wake up.

He knew it.

But honestly? He wasn't so sure anymore.

Shifting in his seat, he threw his head back, massaging at his throbbing temples. When he opened his eyes, he noted something from the corner of his eye. Her ukulele was lying beside her; he stared at it long and hard before deciding to pick it up. Upon closer inspection, he noticed scratches and a Band-Aid on the crack of the soundboard. Something tugged inside him; he knew exactly where that crack came from.

His grip tightened.

Kenma was right, he was selfish.

He was so selfish.

Absentmindedly, he played with the strings, filling the silence. And then, he began adjusting the chords. It used to drive (Name) nuts, especially when she found how out of tune her ukulele was because of him. He smiled, he always loved seeing her cute face pinched into a frown – she was so cute like that.

Satisfied with the pitch, his calloused fingers began to play a few strings. The song was slow, gentle.

I wanna make you smile, whenever you're sad

Carry you around when your arthritis is bad

All I wanna do, is grow old with you

I'll get your medicine when your tummy aches

Build you a fire if the furnace breaks

Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you

  He loved her.

Cliché as it is, he did.

Truth of the matter is, he's always been in love with her.

From the first moment they met, the first time he saw her smile, the first time she scolded him and Kenma, the first time she fussed over them, the first time he saw her play an instrument, to the first time she made him realize how many years have passed that he was so, so, in love with her.

So hopelessly in love with (Name).

Except, he was scared to risk their friendship – scared that she might not feel the same way he did.

I'll miss you

Kiss you

Give you my coat when you are cold

Need you

Feed you

Even let ya hold the remote control

Six months without her was absolute torture.

She was part of every significant event in his life; he couldn't remember spending a day without her in it

Because life without her? He couldn't even imagine.

It was meaningless.

If he could, he'd turn back time and make it right.

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink

Put you to bed if you've had too much to drink

I could be the man who grows old with you

I wanna grow old with you

The last lines of the song came out barely a whisper.

Releasing a shaky breath, he hung his head, tears streamed freely. "I've waited so long to play that."

It was the cheesiest song from a lousy movie. But the song, he had to admit, was one of his low-key favorites. The lyrics to the song were so sincere and heartfelt. He finally understood why love songs were made – to say the words everyone failed to say or supplement their feelings.

If only she was awake, then she'd hear his feelings.

Putting her ukulele away, he takes her hand in his, holding it close as he cried. "Please, wake up."

He buried his face into her hand, kissing it as he repeatedly begs for her to wake up, tears still streaming. "There's so much I want to tell you, so much I want you to know."

Taking her hand, he places a quick kiss to her palm, pressing it against his chest. "Feel that? That's my heart and it's beating for you."

His heart was beating fast, as it always did when (Name) was around.

Every single thing she does wonders is magic to him, especially with the way he captivated her the moment their eyes met. He missed it all – her smile, her touch, her eyes, her laugh, in general, he missed her.

So much it hurt.

Because the possibility of her never waking up was a factor that scared him every single day for the past six months. He didn't want their last meeting to be of him being an ass to her.

His heart skipped a beat.

He looked up at her, then at the hand on his chest, he swore he felt her hand twitch.

[hms-no-fun]

out of curiosity: if 3.2 will be more like an MSPA, do you still plan to host it on AO3, or on something more MSPA-esque in format, like MSPFA?

the current plan is to move godfeels to a dedicated website, and there's a couple reasons for this.

ao3's css library is extremely limited. in the short term that was a good thing, at least as someone with basically no understanding of html or css who learns best with a pared down toolset. i mean literally writing gf1 i didn't understand that you couldn't just color everything in a doc and copy/paste it to ao3 lmao, i really started at zero. but these days i'm feeling more and more limited by the tools ao3 offers. hosting 3.2 on a separate site gives us a lot more control over that stuff, and now i feel a lot more ready to take advantage of that than i would have before.

i think, also, that hosting it on a website will help tremendously with pacing. a recurring complaint with chapter 8 is that act 3-1, the risk & dare chapter, is just way too long and difficult to navigate. and like, yeah, you know what, 40,000 words on a single webpage is a lot to get through.

but chapter 8 is the nonsensically octofurcated behemoth that it is precisely because i am dedicated to structure. while i certainly agree now that it would be a better reader experience for 3-1 to be split into three or more sub-chapters, as a writer it just feels wrong to deliver it any other way-- EXCEPT if we had an mspa-style clickthrough function. i've always wanted to utilize the ==> prompt, and my use of excessive dramatic line breaks is an attempt to experientially emulate that click for the reader. homestuck similarly has nonsensical structure out the wazoo, but from a reader's perspective that doesn't really matter because the moment to moment pacing is dictated by physical action on your end. you aren't reading 400,000 words in one go, right, you're reading chunks of 50 - 100 at a time. i just think the hyperlinked presentation will be overall more satisfying for both parties. and that'd be true even if we weren't planning to do consistent spritework!

so anyway, here's the plan. everything that's currently on ao3 will stay there in perpetuity. when 3.2 starts, there will be a fic created in the series whose body will most likely just be a link to the godfeels site. gf1 to 3.1 will, at some point, be re-hosted on our site. i've been considering the possibility of taking that as an opportunity to "remaster" godfeels [rolls eyes] but idk how willing i am to open that particular pandora's box just yet. what i definitely want to do, though, is translate the fic as it exists to an mspa-style presentation, keeping all the same structural designations but paced differently. this is something that's already existed in my head for a long time and i think it'll make for a really interesting re-read experience down the line.

DISCLAIMER: OBVIOUSLY I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE MY MIND ABOUT LITERALLY EVERYTHING

[bluegoesbloop]

larry stylinson fic recs masterlist

Masterpost

Works: 11

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: None of these fics have been written by me and some may include potentially triggering topics. I have done my best to include all necessary extra information, but if I have missed something please let me know. Also, some of these works are written about topics that are problematic, for example: underage, shipping real life people, step siblings, etc. Please remember that these are all works of fiction and most of these ‘problematic fics’ are written and read as a way to cope with trauma, or to purge oneself of a hyperfixation, so use your own judgement when clicking on them, and do not send hate to either the authors or me. I have included some of these writings in the lists to help other people who may be looking for a safe outlet for their thoughts, if you do not like it please just skip over it.

Click 'Keep Reading' ↓

I've Kissed Honey Lips (Felt The Healing In The Fingertips)

@/loveroflou - ao3 - 36,195 words - 1/1 chapter(s)

Carefully, Zayn starts, “You do know Niall wasn’t joking about him being unstable, right?” Louis opens his mouth to cut him off, but Zayn continues, “He might not have done anything yet, but that doesn’t mean he can’t, or won’t.”

“You don’t know him,” Louis tries, because it’s true. The only problem is that Louis doesn’t really know Harry, either.

or, the raisin cookie fic

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION] : smut, mild a/b/o, alpha!louis, omega!harry, feminine!harry

✰ PERSONAL FAVOURITE

The Sovereign and the Sorcerer

@/Jennifer_Kaid - ao3 - 22,615 words - 1/1 chapter(s)

The silhouette of the person barely gave away his features. He could make out a tall frame, strength packing around his body like an armour. The scent hit him next, a thoroughbred alpha, Louis bared his teeth in warning. He would bite if this man tried to touch him.

"I suppose you are hungry," an amused voice regarded him, his accent giving away that he was from enemy lands, not that Louis needed any more confirmation than the situation he was currently in. "I brought some food and water," the stranger elaborated.

Louis rolled his eyes, tugging the chains to make them rattle, "I don't suppose you would be letting me out of these chains."

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: smut, prince!harry, sorcerer!louis

Pretty Boy

@/iwillpaintasongforlou - ao3 - 32,635 words - 1/1 chapter(s)

Harry's been forced into a high-class prostitution ring because his heroin-addicted mother is too strung out to realize that her boyfriend is pimping out her son. Louis is the crown prince of England and gets into a lot of mischief and thinks it's normal to pay prostitutes to "get a good night's sleep." They probably aren't meant to see each other beyond that one random night, but then again, they probably aren't meant to see each other at all.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: smut, prince!louis, prostitute!harry

✰ PERSONAL FAVOURITE

Seaside Improvisation

@/tinyweirdloves - ao3 - 6,151 words - 1/1 chapter(s)

“I’m not from here,” Harry says. He’s silent for the space of a breath. “I’m from… I’m from under.” He stares right at Louis like he’s willing him to understand. Louis looks back at him, confused. A tiny crease forms between Harry’s eyebrows. “Under,” he repeats stubbornly, and Louis’s struck by how young he looks in that moment.

“Under where?” he says, and Harry looks at him like he can’t figure him out.

“The water,” Harry says, like it should be obvious. “The sea.”

[harry is a mermaid who has lost his tail and he lives in louis's bathtub for a month.]

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: no smut, mermaid!harry

Pretty please (with sugar on top)

@/angelichl - ao3 - 113,663 words - 3/3 chapter(s)

Harry is a sugar baby omega who cons rich alphas for a living. Louis is a rich alpha with too much self-control.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: smut, a/b/o, soulmates, sugar baby!harry

Hate Me To The Moon

@/harrystylesand stuff - ao3 - 83,616 words, 8/8 chapter(s)

The last thing Harry wanted was to spend his entire summer stuck with his dad's new fiancée and her kids. He wants no more when he learns she's a very religious dictator, raising a sixteen year old nun and a clean cut potential priest ass kisser.

Everything takes a slightly different turn, however, when Harry finds out his future step-brother is actually the rude stranger he caught sucking off a guy in a pub, far from the reserved Christian his mom thinks he is...

AU where Harry is a sexy nerd, Louis is a great actor, and they both pretend to hate each other's guts to convince themselves they're not feeling things future step-brothers shouldn't feel...

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: smut, larry are stepbrothers

Colour Me Bubblegum Pink

@/loveroflou - ao3 - 5,817 words, 1/1 chapter(s)

Louis tightens his hands around his waist, pulling him closer to kiss him deeper, licking the shy smile right off Harry’s lips.

Softly, Harry hums into the kiss, his fingers curling instinctively in Louis’ chestnut hair. It’s hard to remember they’re just friends when Harry’s making pleased little sounds in the back of his throat that Louis leans all that much closer to swallow, his eyelashes fluttering bashfully against Louis’ cheeks.

or, teaching harry how to kiss was never supposed to be a thing, but his lips are plush and red bitten and his eyes are large and glossy, and louis’ only human

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: n/a

Rogue

@/laventrioque - ao3 - 94,992 words, 48/48 chapter(s)

Werewolf AU 'cause there aren't enough already :)

“No, Liam! How many times do I have to… before you finally… NO WAY … a rogue in our pack?… cannot trust him … don’t care to know him … have enough members to worry about.”

He hears more indistinct shouts before he hears pretty clearly: “His own pack didn’t want him!”

Sitting here, his precious bag between his feet and everyone in the room looking at him, some with pity, some with disdain, some with curiosity, Louis feels like someone squeezed his heart in their hands and isn’t letting it go. He wills his head to stay up high and his posture to stay confident. He will not flee the room. He will not let that stupid lump in his throat get the better of him. He will stay here until Liam returns. He will take the rejection in stride and move on. Like he’s been doing all his life."

--

Louis is a rogue Omega who's suffered through rejection and abuse for the biggest part of his life. He stumbles onto the Styles pack, quite possibly the kindest one he's ever met.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: smut, werewolf au, a/b/o, alpha!harry, omega!louis, background zayn/liam/niall

chasing the sun

@/alifeofourown - ao3 - 4,938 words, 1/1 chapter(s)

Louis doesn’t want to be buzzed or even somewhat drunk. No, he wants to be so smashed that he can’t even remember what his name is. He wants to be at the point where he wakes up ten hours later and is still having trouble placing the simplest thoughts.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: n/a

As School Boys From Their Books

@/colazitron - ao3 - 7,333 words, 1/1 chapter(s)

It's January and Louis's on his last school trip to Manchester. He meets Harry.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: smut, underage, 15y/o!harry, 18y/o!louis

Sun Kissed Hurricane, Perfect Storm

@/iwillpaintasongforlou - ao3 - 7,692 words, 1/1 chapter(s)

Harry is the quiet kid in the back of his statistics class who writes a lot and dreams about Louis’ cheekbones . Louis needs a statistics tutor ASAP before he flunks and the quiet kid in the back of the class seems like a good choice. Harry wants to help Louis however he can and Louis wants to see how much he can make Harry blush.

[ADDITIONAL INFORMATION]: nerd!harry, punk!louis, louis has adhd

[abused-sides]

Way to Please

Read part one first, read on Ao3 

Trigger warnings: Emotional abuse, gaslighting, being called selfish, ableism, familial abuse, panic attacks, touch-starved Logan, food mention 

A/N: This is a commission! Another thanks to @darkle-elkrad​!! :D More info at the end 

Disclaimer: J. is NOT Janus, he’s an unsympathetic OC.

Read on Ao3

Logan pushed the knob on his fidget cube in slow circles. It was a simple toy, all black, and usually hidden in his pocket. He currently had it pressed between his thigh and the car door. His stomach was knotted and he stared out the window almost obsessively, counting every mile they got closer to his new school. 

“You messing with that toy again?” 

Logan looked at J. He shoved it in his pocket. “Sorry.” 

“‘S fine. People are gonna make fun of you for being a baby, though.” 

Logan’s face heated up. “I told you I won’t use it in front of other people.” 

They pulled into the college’s parking lot. Logan’s small life was packed up neatly in the backseat. J. turned the car off and sighed. 

“You sure you don’t need help moving in?” J. gave him a look. “You know how you can get.” 

Logan nodded once. “I know. But I can control that. I can move in myself, don’t worry.” 

hesitated, then sighed again. “Alright. Get out, then. Call me tonight.” 

“Yeah. Love you.” 

“Mhm.” 

Logan stacked up his three boxes and started towards his dorm. Luckily, J. had taken a few weeks off his own education and brought Logan down for a tour last week, so he knew exactly where he was going. He managed all the way to his room and fumbled for the key card in his wallet. 

He nearly dropped his boxes, and his heart leapt into his throat. He caught them just fine, but the panic remained, fizzling slowly like water down a stopped drain. His fingers itched for his cube. He ignored it, and got the door open just before the anxiety peaked. 

One half of the room was already claimed, half unpacked suitcases sprawled over the bed and wardrobe, so Logan dumped his stuff on the second bed. He immediately righted the boxes and tossed some fallen items back inside. He glanced over his shoulder. 

He was alone. 

He shoved his hand in his pocket and found the side with the buttons, mashing them down before flipping it to switch. He click-click-clacked it a few times as the tension slipped from his chest. 

He took a second to look around the room. His roommate’s life was coated in black and purple. Band tees stuck out of the half clothes drawer, notebook upon notebook littering his bed. He had a purple and black plaid quilt tossed over a gray weighted blanket. An expensive laptop sat freely on the desk. 

“...oh, come on, you are such an asshole.” The door opened and closed, and a boy with purple hair came inside, holding a phone to his ear with his arms full of sodas and candy. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck you, too. Sure. Later. Love you.” 

Logan blinked. 

The boy dumped his food on his bed and shoved his phone in his pocket. He raised an eyebrow. “Uh, hi.” 

Logan nodded. “Was that a… girlfriend?” 

“Nah, my brother.” He turned back to line his drinks on the shared desk. “I’m Virgil.” 

“Logan.” He hesitated, then turned to his own bed, pulling out neatly rolled up clothes. 

“I hope you don’t mind that I already picked my side.” Virgil grabbed another armful of clothes and went over to the wardrobe, punching down the fabric until he could layer more inside. 

Logan couldn’t help but say, “You could fit more if you folded them.” 

Virgil snorted. “There’s three other drawers. I’ll be fine.” 

“Right.” His face flushed. “Sorry.” 

Logan hung his clothes in the closet. They unpacked silently. Logan occasionally tapped his pocket, just to make sure his cube was still there. 

Virgil sat at the edge of his bed and held out his hand. “Let me see your class schedule?” 

Logan startled, then fumbled for his backpack. “Right— Uh, sorry, one second.” 

He found it while Virgil watched with raised eyebrows. He handed it over. Virgil hummed, gray eyes trailing over the paper. He really was striking. He was loud in a way Logan never wanted to be, but Virgil didn’t seem upset by it. It was all clearly a choice, from the way he dressed to how he styled his hair. He lounged on his bed, taking up all the space without taking his combat boots off first, chewing on his nails— likely while the nail polish was chipped. 

Nail polish. His middle fingers were painted black, the rest a strong purple. How did he have the confidence to wear nail polish? If Logan tried that, J. would make fun of him until he cried. 

“We have some Gen-Eds together,” Virgil mused. “And an art class. How long have you been drawing?” 

Logan swallowed and sat on his bed. It was clear Virgil wasn’t handing the schedule back any time soon. “Not long. I just picked it up last year, actually. It sounded, I don’t know, relaxing.” 

Virgil grinned and glanced at him. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” 

“It’s… hard. Harder than I expected.” 

“Can I see?” 

Logan hesitated. He reached for the box with his sketchbook, but Virgil held his hand up. 

“It’s okay. No need to look so panicked.” He chuckled. “I’ll just look later. I was going to go look around campus, make sure I know where all my classes are. Wanna come with? We can check the Gen-Eds.” 

Logan really didn’t want to— he knew where his classes were, and he planned on finding good spots for his stuff —but he nodded and stood. He glanced at Virgil’s bed, where he laid on top of all of his stuff. A few things crumpled and crunched as he rolled onto his feet. 

“Cool.” He grabbed a Monster off the desk and popped it open. “Let’s go.” 

Virgil wasn’t actually as loud as he looked. He had the confidence down, and he teased Logan quite a bit, but he was very… calm. Logan would never admit it out loud, but he was jealous. He could never be that sure of himself. 

After finding their Gen-Eds, they agreed to stick together to find their other classes as well. Logan admitted to having already visited his— Virgil laughed —so they set off to find Virgil’s. 

Once they got to the last class on the list, Virgil stopped. “Shit,” he whispered. “Oh, shit.” 

Logan frowned. “What is it?” 

The wind blew through Virgil’s bangs, revealing wide, anxiety-filled eyes. The courtyard was mostly empty, the occasional student passing by a couple dozen feet away. 

“They put me in the wrong class.” Virgil pushed his hair back and drew in a shaky breath. “We agreed I’d be in the morning class, I— I can’t make this one, I don’t know— fuck.” 

“Hey.” Logan took a small step closer. “Hey, it’s okay. We can just go talk to someone, right?” 

Virgil shook his head quickly. His breathing was speeding up. “No, are you kidding? They’re probably so busy, this is stupid. I just— fuck, I’ll have to make it work.” 

“Virgil, no.” Logan laughed weakly. “No, come on, we can fix this. Breathe, right?” 

“‘Breathe—’ Right, fuck, I’m not… I’m not breathing.” 

Logan held his hands out, and Virgil scrambled to take them. Logan held them tight. “Uh, just follow my breathing.” 

Logan helped him right himself, a few tears slipping out from Virgil’s eyes, but he mostly got himself back together pretty fast. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Virgil gave Logan their schedules and pushed his sweaty palms down his pants. He wiped his face. “Sorry, that was… stupid.” He fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie. 

“No, it wasn’t. I… uh, here.” Logan hesitated, then found his fidget cube and pressed it into Virgil’s hand. 

Virgil looked at it in surprise. His fingers naturally found the side with the buttons, click-click-clicking. “Oh. Thanks. I had one of these last year but I lost it.” 

Logan blinked. “Really?” 

“Yeah. I’ll give it back though, don’t worry.” 

“Let’s go talk to the registrar. We can tell them your schedule is conflicting.” 

Virgil stared at the cube. He flicked the dial a few times, listening to the light crank as it snapped back. “Are you sure?” He mumbled. 

Logan forced a smile against his nerves. “Of course. Better to do it now then wait until it’s worse.” 

“That’s true. Okay.” He laughed weakly and straightened his shirt out. “Right, you’re right. Sorry about this.” 

“It’s fine,” Logan promised. 

Logan walked with him down to the registrar's office and it ended up being an easy fix. Virgil walked out while rolling his eyes. 

“I can’t believe that gave me a panic attack. Shit, I’ve had panic attacks over some dumb things, but… wow.” 

Logan laughed. “It’s a… big day. Don’t worry about it. I, uh… I had a couple today, too.” 

“Well, panic attacks make me hungry. Do you want to go grab something to eat?” 

Logan nodded. “Sure.” 

They stopped outside their dorm building. Virgil texted for a moment, then said, “I have a car we can borrow. Come on.” 

They found a silver truck in the Junior’s parking lot. Virgil pulled the keys out of his pocket. “It’s my brother’s,” he said. “I’ve got a spare key.” 

“Your brother sounds cool.” Logan climbed into the passenger side. 

It was a very tall truck. His face heated up as he struggled a little to get inside. 

“He’s an asshole,” Virgil laughed. “What do you want to eat?” 

“Uh—” Logan’s mind blanked. “Um… I don’t— I don’t know, what do you want?” 

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Um… Okay, well, I know a Chinese place close by that’s good. We can grab one to bring back?” 

Logan nodded and relaxed into his seat. “Yeah. That’s good.” 

Virgil pulled out of the parking lot. They took their food to go, Logan managing to find a kosher option fairly easily, and ate while flipping through Netflix. They found a show they’d both been wanting to watch and got stuck on it easily. They ended up watching the entire first season, only stopping to break open Virgil’s collection of snacks.  

Logan went to bed that night, later than he ever had, feeling better than he ever had. 

xxx 

“Hey, I’m going to see my brother. Want to come?” 

Logan looked up from his homework in surprise. “Um… sure?” 

Virgil had been acting weird lately. He invited him to go somewhere or do something every day. If Logan showed the slightest bit of hesitation, he backed off, but there he was again the next day. If Logan did hesitate, Virgil wouldn’t let him go back on it. Logan didn’t understand it. 

He’d also started acting more nervous around Logan. Less sure of himself. Logan worried he did something. But if he did, there’s no way Virgil would want him to meet his brother, would he? 

He settled his homework neatly back inside his binder and checked a few things off his planner before grabbing his phone and wallet. He followed Virgil outside, where the streetlights glowed warmly against the dark sky, and across the courtyard. The Junior dorm buildings looked identical to the Freshmen’s, only a bit bigger. Inside, their lobby was much more taken care of, and looked more like a gameroom than anything. Groups of students sat with decks of cards, at vending machines, at pool tables. Instead of heading up to the dorms, Virgil led Logan to a small group of kids settled in bean bag chairs. 

A boy with striking similarities to Virgil— all angles and bones, the same gray eyes —sat with another boy, covered in freckles, settled in his lap. 

“Hey, Jan. Hey, Patton.” Virgil placed a light hand on Logan’s shoulder. The touch burned through his shirt, and Logan nearly sucked in a breath. “This is Logan, he’s my roommate.” 

“Wow, you’re getting along with your roommate?” Janus asked in surprise. “I guess I owe Patton ten bucks.” 

“You do not!” Patton rolled his eyes with a smile. “We did not make a bet, Virgil. He’s doing his thing.” 

“I know,” Virgil laughed. 

He pulled the last free bean bag chair towards them and yanked Logan down with him. Their sides pressed together, the bag molding them against each other, Logan couldn’t breathe. He managed to settle himself on the edge of the chair. His side was cold as ice, his heart racing. Virgil gave him a weird look before shoving it off and looking back to Janus. 

Logan thought briefly when the last time he had a hug was. Surely not that long ago, right? Parents hugged their children all the time. But he couldn’t quite recall. If he’d been hugged recently, would he still have the strong urge to reach out and feel Virgil’s hair? To take his hand and trace Virgil’s fingers? To feel Virgil’s palm against his face? 

Logan’s face flushed. Stop acting creepy. 

“What are we playing?” Virgil asked. 

Virgil helped him through the card game. It became obvious towards the third round that Janus was cheating, mostly because Patton scolded him loud enough for everyone to hear. 

“Wait, he’s been cheating?” Virgil threw his cards down dramatically. “You bitch!” 

Janus laughed as Virgil kicked the cards at him. Logan tensed. 

“Stop fighting!” Patton sighed, but he was smiling. Why was he smiling? He batted his eyelashes at Janus. “Baby, buy me a snack?” 

Janus picked Patton up, stood, then tossed Patton into the bean bag chair. He squealed. 

“Don’t use that voice on me.” Janus leaned down and kissed him softly. “Totally unfair.” 

“Oh, is it?” 

They mumbled together for a moment between kisses. Logan was certain his face had never been so red. Virgil picked up a card and flung it at them. 

“Gross! I don’t want to see my brother make out with anyone!” 

Janus snorted as he pulled away and found his wallet. “That’s just because you’ve never made out with anyone.” 

Virgil’s ears turned red. “That’s not true! Gah!” 

Janus left to the vending machine, and Patton relaxed into the chair with a wide grin. “So Logan, what are you studying?” 

“Physics,” he mumbled. “Are you two okay?” 

Virgil looked at him in surprise. “Me and Janus?” 

Logan nodded. 

“Uh, yeah? Why?” 

“You guys were fighting?” 

Patton giggled while Virgil raised an eyebrow. “We weren’t fighting, we were joking. You don’t have brothers?” 

“No, I have one. He’s two years older than me.” 

“Alright… what’s his name? Maybe Janus knows him.” 

“He doesn’t go to this school.” Logan found his fidget cube in his pocket and rolled his thumb around the metal ball. “He’s at a college in our hometown.” 

“You moved away for college?” Patton asked in surprise. 

“What’s going on?” Janus dropped into Patton’s lap and pressed several packets of gummies into his palm with a kiss to his cheek. 

“Logan went to college out of state to get away from his brother,” Virgil said. 

Logan’s eyes widened. “That’s not true!” 

Virgil bumped their shoulders together. 

“If Virgil tried going to college out of state without a good reason, I’d kill him.” Janus pulled Patton closer. “Seriously. I’d be worried out of my mind.” 

“You don’t…” Logan hated to confirm Virgil’s suspicion, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “you don’t need, like, a break?” 

Everyone stared at him. 

“No,” Janus said flatly. “No, I actually love my brother.” 

“Gross,” Virgil mumbled, but his ears were red again. 

“I love my brother,” Logan insisted. 

“Oh, we don’t doubt that.” 

“I just— I don’t know. You guys were fighting yesterday morning, too.” 

Virgil stared at him in confusion, until it clicked. He laughed. “You mean when I was on the phone? Lo, he called me a coffee gremlin so I told him to fuck off. It wasn’t a fight. We were just messing with each other.” 

Heat steadily climbed up Logan’s neck. He closed his hand around his cube until it hurt. He wanted to curl in on himself, escape the conversation, and never see any of them again. 

“What the hell does your brother call you?” Janus asked. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Logan said weakly. “We’re just— we’re not as close as you, I guess.” 

“Logan, it’s okay,” Patton said softly, face pinched with worry. “You can talk about it. No one’s here to judge you, we’re not trying to force you to be grateful for your family or anything.” 

Janus squeezed Patton’s shoulder. “Yeah, we know about shitty families, if that’s what this is.”

“And that’s the vibe I’m getting,” Virgil added. “The shit Janus calls me doesn’t bother me. I tell him if he says something fucked up. What does your brother do?” 

“I— I don’t know, I don’t know.” Logan pushed his sweaty palms against his jeans. “He just… gets mad sometimes. You know?”

“No,” Virgil said flatly. “What does he do when he’s mad?” 

“He just… gets mad.” Logan’s voice trembled. He didn’t know how to get out of this. He made a big deal out of it, something that so clearly wasn’t a big deal, and now he was just stuck. “I guess he, I don’t know, he calls me selfish sometimes.” 

“Like when?” Patton asked. He’d leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees, brows knitted. 

Logan stuttered through a few stories off the top of his head. He’d tried to tell them in a casual way, insist that it wasn’t a big deal and he was fine, but everyone was so… concerned. Virgil’s fists clenched around his hoodie, Janus’ eyes narrowed. Logan ducked his head. He was shaking. 

He scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry, I think I— I think I need to go.” 

“Logan,” Virgil sighed. “We can stop talking about it, but come on. You can’t like the way he treats you.” 

“Does it matter?” 

Everyone paused. Logan pressed a hand to his forehead. 

“No,” Janus’ voice dripped with sarcasm, “of course not. People can just do whatever they want to you with no consequences.” He waved his hand. “Who cares, right?” 

Logan froze up. His muscles were pulled taut, eyes squeezed shut, his body wilting like a dead flower. 

“Janus,” Patton scolded. 

He sighed. “Sorry. Look, of course it matters. Come on, sit down. Everything is fine.” 

Logan didn’t believe that. But he sat anyway. He answered their questions. He explained everything as honestly as he could. 

Part of him wanted to defend J., to insist that it really wasn’t that bad and J. loved him. But Logan wasn’t sure if J. did love him. He’d heard how Virgil talked about Janus, and there wasn’t a doubt in Logan’s mind that J. would never talk about him that way. He’d seen how Janus looked at Virgil, sometimes angry but usually in a protective way. It wasn’t like anything Logan had seen from J. 

Hearing them throw around the words ‘abusive,’ ‘manipulative,’ and even ‘gaslighting,’ was hard. Logan jammed the joystick on his fidget cube around so much he almost broke it, bouncing his leg up and down, eventually having to get up and pace. He kept waiting for the snapping, for everyone to tell him how annoying he was being and that he needed to sit and be quiet. They didn’t. 

It was almost uncomfortable. 

The conversation eventually moved— Logan was simultaneously relieved and disappointed —but everyone looked at him different after that. Before Virgil and Logan went back to their room, Patton offered a hug. Logan hesitated, and was about to step into Patton’s arms, when Virgil grabbed his shoulder— just long enough to make him pause. 

“You don’t have to say yes,” he said flatly. 

Patton’s eyes widened. “Oh, gosh! Right! Of course not. Sorry, Logan.”

Logan cleared his throat. “It’s okay.” 

On the walk back, Virgil said, “We’re going to have to work on that.” 

Logan shoved his hands in his pockets. With Fall kicking in full force, it was freezing outside at night, their breath coming out as fog. 

“Work on what?” He mumbled. His body was heavy, eyes lidded. 

“Your whole people pleaser bullshit. You don’t have to say yes to everything. It’s okay to not want to do something.” 

Logan swallowed. He shrugged. 

Virgil stepped in front of Logan and crossed his arms. “We need to set some boundaries, or else I can’t be friends with you. I’m not going to hurt you because you won’t communicate. I won’t be like J.” Virgil stared for a moment, eyes swiping over Logan’s face. His eyes softened. “I won’t be mad. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.” 

“I don’t…” Logan’s heart thumped in his ears. He pressed his thumb against the buttons of his cube. “I don’t really… I don’t know how to handle being touched.” 

Virgil’s eyebrows raised. “Oh? I mean, okay. So don’t touch you, then?” 

“Maybe, just… I don’t know, not that often?” Logan bounced on the balls of his feet. The cold had wormed its way into his bones, and he felt like if he didn’t move he’d either go crazy or freeze to death. 

“Come on, let’s get inside.” Virgil nodded towards the door. 

They didn’t talk until they were settled into their beds and the lights were off. 

“Thanks for telling me,” Virgil said. “I’ll talk to the others, too. You can always reach out if you want.” 

Logan’s eyes watered. He was grateful for the dark. “Yeah,” he whispered. 

“Goodnight, Lo.” 

“Goodnight, Virgil.” 

xxx 

Virgil and Logan laid on their stomachs, on the floor. Notebooks and textbooks were spread out in front of them, covered in highlighter and pen. 

It was a few months after Logan had confessed about J., and a few things were becoming apparent. 1) Virgil was not giving up on him. Neither were Janus or Patton. 

2) J. probably, almost definitely, did not love Logan. 

Every day it was becoming more and more clear. 

Logan had never been treated the way Virgil and his friends treated him. Sometimes they argued, sometimes Logan was so frustrated and confused he wanted to cry, but they never made him feel like he wasn’t important. Every fight was important. And for the first time, he was able to move on from them. Even when things weren’t quite resolved, even when there was still more to talk about— that didn’t stop Virgil from inviting him out to dinner, from joining him to study, for putting on a bad horror movie. 

“Alright,” Virgil sighed, pushing the textbook away and burying his face in his arms. His voice came out muffled, “if I look at American History anymore I’m going to die. What next?”

“Uh…” Logan cleared his throat and looked at their stack of remaining textbooks. 

Semester finals were coming up in the next month and Logan was severely behind in Calculus. 

“I don’t— I don’t know, what do you want to do next?” 

Virgil picked his head up sluggishly. He blinked at Logan for a second, hair mussed, wrinkles under his eyes. He grabbed their stack of textbooks and dragged it closer. 

He hummed as he looked through it, then pulled the Calculus and Economics textbooks. He shoved the others away. “Which one?” 

“Um…”

“Come on, I’m good with either. Which one?” 

Logan hesitated, then pushed away the Economics book. 

“Cool.” Virgil flipped the textbook open. “Come on, I want to get this done.” 

Logan flushed. He scrambled to find his notebook and flashcards, struggling to focus. A sturdy feeling of control settled over Logan’s bones, something he didn’t think he’d ever felt before. 

xxx 

“Almost ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah, just let me—” 

Logan yanked the blanket down his bed, then pushed aside his pillow. He relaxed and snatched his fidget cube, shoving it in his pocket. 

“Okay.” He straightened up. “I’m ready. Let’s go.” 

They left their dorm and headed downstairs. They’d planned to meet Janus and Patton in the parking lot so they could all go to this arcade nearby. Janus had jokingly (jokingly?) called it a double date. 

“Yeah, there’s this zombie game you’d really like,” Virgil rambled as they stepped outside. He immediately tensed against the cold and stepped closer to Logan. Logan shuffled against him, their shared body heat negligible. 

The parking lot appeared ahead and Logan stopped. 

“Lo?” Virgil frowned. “What’s up?” 

got out of his car and grinned as his eyes landed on Logan. He waved. 

“Um…” Shit. “I— I don’t know, uh—” 

“Logan!” 

Virgil looked over his shoulder as J. headed towards them. His face darkened. “Is that J.?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Hey!” J. stopped in front of them and grinned. “Surprise. Come on, let’s go grab dinner. Who’s this?” 

“Virgil.” Logan stepped closer. “My roommate, remember?” 

“Oh, yeah. Well anyway, let’s go.”

“Actually,” Virgil said in annoyance, “we had plans. Maybe you can call ahead next time.” 

quirked an eyebrow. Logan’s blood ran cold as J.’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll have to reschedule. He’s my little brother, I’m sure you can find someone else to drag along.” 

Virgil scoffed and glanced back at Logan, then stopped. “You’re not really considering this, are you?” 

Logan looked between them, helpless. He was terrified of upsetting either of them, but there was no way to please both of them. 

“I— I don’t know. J., we had plans,” he said quietly. 

“You can reschedule.” J. grabbed Logan’s arm and pulled him closer. “I haven’t seen you in forever, don’t be selfish.” 

“You don’t have to do what he wants,” Virgil insisted. His eyes were on J., face scrunched in a glower. 

“What’s up with you?” J. asked in frustration. “You’re acting like it’s a crime to take my little brother to dinner. Just lay off, will you?” 

He stormed away, dragging Logan behind him. Virgil huffed. His footsteps echoed away. 

Please don’t be mad. 

Logan forced himself through dinner. The entire night crawled by, full of passive aggressive comments and insults Logan had forgotten how much he hated. He didn’t understand why J. came all the way down here just to ridicule him. Couldn’t he do that over text like he usually did? Didn’t he catch on to why Logan stopped answering? 

After J. drove him back to campus, way after nightfall, he grabbed Logan’s arm before he could escape. “We need to talk.” 

Logan shoved his hand in his pocket. He flicked the switch, over and over, click-click-click— 

“Will you stop playing with that fuckin’ toy? I’m being serious.”

“It calms me down,” Logan mumbled, pulling his hand out. “Sorry.” 

“I don’t like Virgil,” he said flatly. “I don’t like how he treats you and honestly he’s fucking rude. You’ve been pulling away. Mom and Dad haven’t heard from you in months. I haven’t heard from you in longer. That’s not fair to us just because you have this new friend.” 

Logan stared. What the hell was he supposed to say? I like how Virgil treats me a whole fuckton more than you do. He couldn’t say that. Even if he wanted to, which he wasn’t sure he did. 

“I’ll talk to him about it,” he lied. 

“Talk to—” J. barked a laugh, “no, ask for a new roommate. I don’t want you talking to him at all anymore, okay?” 

Logan swallowed. “He’s my best friend.” 

“That’s a problem. He’s not good for you.” 

He pulled on the door handle a few times. “Can I go? I get it, I’m sorry.” 

“You clearly don’t get it. If you did—”

Logan pulled on the handle a few more times as J. droned on. His body was lighter, his head foggy. He could see himself tugging, tugging, could watch J. getting angrier and barely made out his mouth forming the words ‘stop with the fucking door.’ 

Then he was outside. 

peeled out of the parking lot, tired squeaking over the pavement, and Logan hurried to his dorm. 

Virgil paused the T.V. as Logan got inside. He panted, chest heaving. Did he run? He didn’t remember. 

“Logan?” Virgil stood. “Hey, what’s going on? What’d he do? Did he say something?” He hurried over. 

Logan stumbled through the story. Virgil’s glare deepened with each word, and every time Logan tried to make it better, Virgil just got angrier. 

“Stop apologizing,” he snapped. “Come here, you need to sit down.” 

He held out his hand, and Logan hesitated, before taking it. As Virgil led him to the bed, Logan focused on the texture— soft and cold. The pad of Virgil’s thumb was pressed against Logan’s palm. He craved more and he wanted to rip his hand away. 

Virgil sat Logan down, then took his back back and knelt down. “Where’s your cube?”

Logan shook his head. 

Virgil glared. “Did he take it?” 

“No! I just— I don’t need it.” 

“You clearly do. Come on, have I ever made fun of you for that?” 

Logan hesitated, then fumbled to get it out. Click-click-click. Click-clack-click-click. 

“Come on, follow my breathing. It’s okay. We’re going to figure this out. You don’t need him. It’s alright.”

Virgil slowly got Logan back in his body. His breathing became his again, and he was reminded of where he was. He gripped the covers, rubbing his fingers over the plush. 

“I’m sorry,” he managed. He still panted a little, his head light. 

“Sit here. I’m gonna grab some water.” 

Virgil came back and sat next to him. He handed Logan the water, who gulped it down. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. Virgil took the glass back, their fingers brushing, and set it on the desk. 

“I don’t think you should talk to him anymore.” 

Logan flinched. 

“I know. I know it’s confusing. It’s your decision. If you want to stay in contact with him for a little longer, I’m not going to hold that against you.”

Logan looked up in surprise. “What? But you want—”

“It’s not my life. I think he’s an asshole and I don’t think he deserves you, but I’m not going to make choices for you. Not these.” 

Logan’s eyes watered. He looked away. 

Virgil sighed. “You don’t have to do that. I won’t make fun of you.” 

He buried his face in his hands as his body shook. 

Virgil cleared his throat. “Usually when Patton cries, he wants hugs, I don’t… um… what do you need?” 

“What?” Logan’s voice cracked, and Virgil repeated himself. “A blanket?” 

Virgil reached around and pulled the blanket around Logan’s shoulders. He whispered “One second,” and rushed over to his bed. He dragged his weighted blanket over and settled that around Logan’s shoulders, too. 

Logan got his tears out while Virgil refilled his water. He took it with clammy hands, wiping his nose. “Thank you,” he mumbled. 

“You should get some sleep.” 

Logan nodded. He started to take off the weighted blanket, but Virgil held his hand up. “It’s alright. Keep it tonight.” 

Logan hesitated. “Are you sure?” 

“Wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t.” 

He swallowed. “Thank you. I— thank you.” 

Virgil smiled awkwardly. “Get some sleep.” 

Logan settled into bed as Virgil turned the lights off. He brought the weighted blanket up to his nose, eyelids fluttering closed. It smelled like Virgil. It was warm. 

Logan was safe. 

xxx 

Over the rest of the school year, Logan slowly worked at cutting off his parents and J. Virgil helped him, even through the hiccups. There was a moment Logan thought he could fix things, that he and J. could reconcile— then J. gaslit him and Logan almost switched colleges. Virgil made it clear what J. was doing, and Logan hadn’t spoken to J. since. 

The two eventually agreed to get an apartment together after college. Logan got a part time job to keep his mind busy, and he barely had any free time between that and the studying, but he spent most of it with Virgil. 

“And how satisfied were you with your roommate this year?” The registrar asked as Logan sat in the oversized armchair. 

“Um, he was good. I liked my roommate.” 

“Would you like to continue rooming with him next year?” 

She barely finished speaking before Logan blurted out a ‘yes.’ She laughed and noted it down. Logan met Virgil outside afterwards, and they headed towards the Junior parking lot. 

“You said yes to rooming next year, right?” Virgil asked. 

Logan nodded. “Yeah. You?” 

“Nah, didn’t feel like it.” He smiled. “‘Course I did. You can’t get rid of me.” 

Logan laughed. “What do you want to eat?” 

“I think I’m gonna force Janus to buy me a pizza.” 

He wrinkled his nose. 

Virgil snorted. “What, you don’t want pizza?” 

“That pizzeria you like is disgusting.” 

“You’re disgusting.” 

“Come on, we eat there too much. Can’t we get something else?” 

Virgil pretended to think about it for a moment, before rolling his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. You can pick this time. I’ll tell Janus and Patton to deal with it.” 

Logan grinned. They made it to the parking lot and piled into Janus’ truck. Logan told them what they were eating for dinner, and as Janus headed that way, Virgil nudged Logan with his elbow. 

“I’m proud of you,” he murmured. 

Patton had turned the radio on. Pop music blared through the speakers, but Logan could hear perfectly with Virgil’s mouth close to his ear. Not enough to touch. Just close. 

Logan flushed. “For what?” 

“You’ve come a long way this year.” 

“But I still—”

“Shh. Not focusing on that right now. I’m proud of you.”

Logan’s stomach filled with butterflies. Virgil pulled away with a grin, then yelled something at Janus, who flicked him off. 

Logan settled back with a smile. 

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[random-mailbox]

Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 13 - Enemies to Lovers

This week’s trope of Enemies to Lovers from @floraone ’s matrix (here is the post with it for reference) was chosen by the amazing @daikon1 . These stories are more in line with the anime characterizations of both Usagi and Mamoru than the manga but it does not make them any less wonderful. I guess I am giving away the ending in these more than usual but the below standard disclaimer still applies - sorry!

As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries).

Scavenger Hunt by Scarlet32

While flirting with Motoki, Minako “accidentally” tells him that Usagi might be in love with Mamoru (which Usagi denies!). To prove to Usagi that HE actually likes her, Mamoru asks her what it would take, with Usagi giving him a list of seemingly impossible tasks to complete. And I have to give it to Usagi on these - they are imaginative, but Mamoru is if nothing but resourceful.

Secret Admirer by @starlingsinclair

Mamoru makes fun of Usagi getting gifts from a secret admirer, taunting her that it's creepy and not romantic. What if the tables are turned and he is the one on the receiving end of these? And the person doing it seems to know and understand him shockingly well.

Stitched - @irritablevowel

After an accident in the kitchen lands Usagi in the emergency room to get stitches, the person treating her ends up being someone she used to argue with daily in her school days. Can they put aside their past animosity and start over? (This one is probably in my top 10 favorite fics, make sure you check it out!)

What We Could Be - @allyunabridged

Mamoru and Usagi get set up on a blind date by someone who has no idea they have known each other for years and have been less than cordial since their school days. Could this be their chance to start over?

Right Hand Red - Usabelle

Motoki convinces Mamoru to throw Reika's going away party in his apartment. Can a game of Twister and a little alcohol change things for our favorite duo?

Next week I will be covering Slow Burn Fics based on another request from @daikon1 before getting into the Holiday Spirit with some Christmas-y stories.

Here are the links to the previous Tumblr posts in these series to explore more amazing works based on different themes - make sure to check them out if you haven't had a chance! (Click on title name to go to the post)

Week 1 - Groundhog Day

Week 2 - Established Relationships

Week 3 - Sex Positivity

Week 4 - Unfinished Stories

Week 5 - Darker Stories

Week 6 - Potions 🧪

Week 7 - Reveals

Week 8 - 👻Halloween🎃

Week 9 - Wrong Perceptions

Week 10 - Non-Senshi AU

Week 11 - In-Progress Fics

Week 12 - Mutual Pining

[backofthebookshelf]

How To Blacklist Something on AO3

Have you ever accidentally left kudos on a fic and then realized you didn't want to interact with that person at all? Have you ever read something that left such a bad taste in your mouth that you never want to read anything like it again? Do you have a terrible memory for names and only realize halfway through a fic that you're doing it to yourself again? Allow me to show you how to block individuals and tags on AO3 so that you never have to see them again.

(Note: You can exclude tags from your searches in AO3 pretty easily, using the include/exclude filter! But that doesn't work for usernames, and again, if you're forgetful, it can be easier to set it once and never think about it again.)

(Second, more important note: I do not endorse the circulation of block lists. A block list is to curate your own experience, and perhaps to share with friends who have similar needs, never to be posted publicly.)

(Third note, a disclaimer: I didn't create any of these tools, I just use userscripts a lot.)

This isn't the most straightforward system, it's just the only one I've found that works. Grab a Sprite or something, get your phone and your computer, and we'll get this going.

You're going to need to use Firefox for this - it's the only mobile browser that reliably lets you use extensions, and if you want this to work on mobile, you need an extension. I know, it's a pain. I use Firefox on my phone pretty much exclusively for AO3, for what it's worth.

Go to the Firefox Add-Ons page and install Tampermonkey. Tampermonkey is an extension that basically lets you write little userscripts to tweak the way Firefox behaves - think of the userscripts as mini-extensions. In our case, we won't be writing anything, just installing some scripts other people have already written, bless them.

We're going to configure Tampermonkey first, then install and configure our scripts. Click on the Tampermonkey icon in your browser (it's a little square with eyes, no I don't know what it means) and select Dashboard, then go to Settings.

Up at the very top, change the Config mode to Advanced. This should give you some more settings. Scroll down to Script Sync, and check the box by Enable Script Sync. Pick whichever system you want to use to get your scripts to communicate with one another - Google Drive and Dropbox are probably the easiest, if you aren't the kind of person who logs into browsers. Give it your info and log in to your preferred service.

And that's it! Now we're going to install our scripts. You're going to want both ao3 savior and ao3 savior config. On each page, click on the Install link, and then click Install on the new page that pops up. When you're done, go back to your Tampermonkey dashboard (refresh it if you kept it open in a background tab), and you should see something like this:

Now we've got everything installed, it's time to start configuring. ao3 savior you can leave as it is: by default, it'll update itself and do its thing, you don't have to do anything. ao3 savior config is where we make our changes. Go all the way over to the edit button on the far right of the screen.

First you want to make sure that this script doesn't update itself - because when it downloads an update, it'll erase your blocklist and you'll have to reenter the whole thing, and that's a pain. Click on Settings, and uncheck Check for updates in the Updates section, then click Save.

Now go back to the editor. This part is pretty simple, the comments are good. If you want to see a placeholder that tells you that ao3 savior hid something from you, leave the showReasons line set to true; if you want to be able to look at something ao3 savior hid from you anyway, change showPlaceholders to true. alertOnVisit gives you a notification if you clicked on a link to something ao3 savior would have hidden from you, if you set it to true. Then you've got five lines for whatever you want to block: authors, titles, tags, and summaries, plus a whitelist for tags. The whitelist overrides all of the blacklists: if you've blocked all works from an author but whitelisted a tag, and that author uses that tag on one of their works, you'll see it.

Go ahead and fill this in however you want. You can update it in the future, as well - it's not the easiest thing to update, but once you've done it a couple of times it's not too hard. I recommend copying the text you want to block directly from ao3 and pasting it into the config file, that seems to work best for me.  

When you've entered everything you want, go ahead and save (ctrl+s or File->Save from within the script editor). Then you'll want to make sure you don't have to do this all over again on your phone. Close the editor tab, then click on Utilities. Under Cloud, select the same service you picked for syncing, then click Export; this will make a copy of the script you can pull straight onto your phone.

Now, same thing on your phone, but a little simpler: install Firefox, then install Tampermonkey. Now, rather than installing the scripts again, we'll download our backup. Go to Utilities, select your service in the Cloud section, and log in. Tap Show backups, and tap Import (there should only be one file, unless you've done this before). Now go back to Installed Userscripts - you should see the same scripts we installed and set up before! You will need to uncheck Check for updates in ao3 savior config, for some reason that setting doesn't travel.

Now go to Settings, turn on Advanced Settings, and turn on syncing here as well. Make sure the service is set to the same one as you set up before. Be sure to hit Save.

And you're done! Now you have a blacklist that's fairly easy to update on your computer and will sync automatically to your phone. To update, just click on Tampermonkey, select Dashboard, and Edit ao3 savior config to add whatever it is you don't want to see to your blacklist. Be sure to save, and the sync should happen automagically.